Book excerpt: “A writer as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason.” —John Le Carré Inspector Maigret becomes entangled in the dramas of a small town on his quest to solve the murder of their former postmistress Maigret is called from his usual duties in Paris to investigate a murder in a small village located close to La Rochelle. A local postmistress has been killed and suspicion has fallen on the local schoolmaster. When Maigret gets there, he discovers a very inward-looking community of people who hated the victim because she knew all their secrets. Maigret must determine if one of those secrets was enough to make someone into a killer.