Maigret and the Burglar's Wife

Maigret and the Burglar's Wife (French: Maigret et la Grande Perche) is a 1951 detective novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon featuring his character Jules Maigret. Maigret is spurred into action by a visit from a burglar's wife, whom he had known well many years before. She informs him that a few nights previously her husband had been in the act of burgling a house when he discovered a dead body on the floor. Horrified, he had fled the scene, and then left the country - writing to his wife by letter. Maigret is inclined to investigate a prominent dentist, who lives with his domineering mother, and has a wife who has apparently "gone away on holiday" - although Maigret knows he can prove nothing unless he can find the body.

It was translated into English and released in the United Kingdom in 1956.