An eerie mystery in which a local wine dealer is shot and a strange yellow dog starts to circle the town―Inspector Maigret must navigate small-town dynamics to find the elusive culprit. Late at night in a small seaside town, not a single light is on, and everyone is asleep. Or almost everyone: a man, drunk, departs for home after another evening at a hotel bar, where he and a few others regularly gather. Suddenly, he collapses―struck by a gunshot. The victim turns out to be the town’s most successful wine dealer, and his death sets off a series of other curiosities: poisoned drinks at the bar, another missing man, and a dirty yellow dog haunting the neighborhood, accompanied by large, unfamiliar boot tracks. Maigret, who happens to be nearby heading up a mobile unit, arrives swiftly to resolve the growing confusion. Despite the pall over the town and the residents’ tight-lipped reticence, the inspector’s resolute pursuit of the truth makes for a taut, suspenseful adventure. Georges Simenon (1903–1989) was born in Liège, Belgium. An intrepid traveler with a profound interest in people, Simenon strove on and off the page to understand―and not to judge―the human condition in all its shades. His books include the Inspector Maigret series and a richly varied body of wider work united by its evocative power, its economy of means, and its penetrating psychological insight. He is among the most widely read writers in the global canon. Linda Asher is a former fiction editor at The New Yorker and the award-winning translator of works by Milan Kundera and Victor Hugo, among other celebrated authors.