Book excerpt: "One of Simenon's masterpieces." —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker “A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré A man’s dismembered body is found in a canal, and only Maigret can uncover the killer When a man’s headless body is discovered in Paris’s Saint-Martin Canal, Maigret is quick to answer the call. It is in this very neighborhood that he meets a strangely taciturn woman who runs a cafe. Her husband is away on a trip—or so she says. As is often the case, Maigret soon learns that there is more to the story than meets the eye. As shocking as it is incisive, Maigret and the Headless Corpse is a compelling mystery from Georges Simenon.