Maigret in Holland // A Crime in Holland — Georges Simenon

HUMAN APPETITES CLASH WITH SMALL-TOWN RESPECTABILITY WHEN A TEACHER IN A PRIM DUTCH VILLAGE IS MURDERED.

ON HIS LATEST CASE, Maigret finds himself in the town of Delfzijl investigating the murder of a teacher. He is presented with two clues -- a sailor's cap in the bathtub and a Manila cigar butt -- and a gaggle of suspects, including a flirtatious farmer's daughter, an angry lawyer, a larcenous ship owner, an unaccountably frightened cadet, and a pompous criminologist with a revolver. The Inspector, in turn, is preoccupied with a suspicious pathway lit by a lighthouse beam, which leads him to wonder if this is the kind of spot where secret lovers might be discovered.