The Friend of Madame Maigret

Simenon's novels about Commissioner Maigret differ from most other detective stories, which are based on complex crimes, and their investigation resembles an ingenious puzzle. Simenon, however, aims to explain the social and political motives behind the crime. His heroes are... not professional killers and fraudsters, but ordinary people who break the law not because of their criminal inclinations, but because of circumstances that turned out to be stronger than them and human nature in general. At the advice of an acquaintance, Madame Maigret visits the dentist. Before one of her appointments, she met a young woman with a child in the square. The ladies struck up a conversation, and the commissioner's wife started coming early specifically to talk to the woman she liked. Suddenly, the woman noticed something and left, leaving the boy in the care of Madame Maigret. The dentist appointment was canceled, and it later turned out that this story was part of a complex criminal case that Commissioner Maigret was investigating.
Comments and dictionary by O.P. Panayotti.