Simenon's Maigret stories are always fun for his usually short but well-constructed police procedurals set in 1950s Paris. Maigret is the perfect French cop: hard and relentless on the outside but with a soft inner self that can empathize with some of crooks and murderers he must deal with.
A quiet mystery with slow-moving tension. A bum is rescued from the river. He has a fractured skull which did not occur when he nearly drowned. If you are a Simenon fan, you will find this book satisfying.
I don't usually like mystery series but wanted to try this one and enjoyed it as a rich representative of the genre. I can feel the formula within it, though, and probably will not seek out a lot of Simenon to follow up with.
