A particularly excellent Maigret in which the Chief Inspector is involved with a boyhood friend, Florentin, who one day drops into the Quai des Orfevres to report the murder of his lover, Josephine Papet.  Florentin has been Papet’s live-in lover for many years but leaves on four days/nights a week so that she can entertain men who are supporting her under the impression that they are her one and only:  Pare, a senior civil servant, Lamotte, a wealthy wine grower who lives in Bordeaux, Courcel, the owner of a ball bearing factory, and Bodard, a young red-headed insurance agent.   When Florentin denies the murder but admits he was there though never saw the murderer, and when the concierge, the monumental Madame Blanc refuses to identify anyone who visited during the murder period, Maigret is stumped until he uses all of his wiles and strategy to sort this out in a thoroughly satisfactory manner.  We are given some lovely details of Maigret’s personal life in this late novel, e.g. “That evening he and Madame Maigret sat watching television and sipping their little glasses of framboise, from the bottle sent to them by his sister-in-law in Alsace.”  Nice touch, Georges.