"Simenon was fascinated by peculiarities of human personality, which he described in elegant, simple prose . . . as pure as running water." --Roger Ebert

It's the height of spring, and Maigret is grappling with doubly unfamiliar circumstances. He's in the surreal new village of Jeanneville, outside Paris, where an elderly bachelor has been shot dead in his home. ?he prime witness, his twenty-four-year-old housekeeper, Félicie, may well be among Maigret's most unnerving adversaries. Infuriatingly clever, singularly self-possessed, and overtly antagonistic, she is surely hiding something--but what?

As their battle of wits pinballs the investigation between toy land-like Jeanneville and Paris's seedy Place Pigalle, Maigret wonders what preoccupies him more: catching the perpetrator of a brutal murder, or solving the psychological puzzle box of Félicie? A diamond-sharp gem of crime fiction, Félicie is Georges Simenon at his mischievous best.