The incredible opening to this book which gives Maigret a powerful, remorseful and remorseless drive to find out the truth, ends up doing very little at all, as Maigret is more mute witness than detective. People more or less just tell him things - lies in some cases, but no real obstacles for Maigret to overcome. Overall I would be disappointed, but the story that ends up being told is a musing on the passage of time: torn-down churches, old newspaper clippings, a nude painting of a woman before she settled down and married, the End Times. All surrounding a crime, of course, a highly personal, highly traumatizing, highly shocking crime whose effects reverberate through time. The genius of Simenon is that even though this isn't a great novel of detection, it ends up being a great novel about crime, motive and justice. They just needed one more month.  So when Maigret strolled too close to the  flooded Marne, a sudden shove from behind...