Update 2021-06-21: I finished this 135-page book in just three days, but collected many unfamiliar vocabulary words. It’s taking me some time to enter and research them. Vocab list coming in a post later this week.
I couldn’t sleep last night (2021-06-18), so I started the next Maigret novel in the series, La tête d’un homme (1931). It’s pretty quick going – in 3 hours or so I read 60 pages, which is a little under a half of the novel. I’m noting unfamiliar words and expressions as I go, but I’ll hold off from posting them until I’ve finished the book.
The story has an entertaining setup. Chapter 1 sees Maigret, a judge, and a prison official lurking in the shadows of a prison courtyard while an inmate effects an escape. We learn that, unbeknownst to the prisoner, the escape was arranged by Maigret himself as a way to test his hypothesis that the man is innocent of the crime for which he’s been condemned to death. Something about the evidence in the case has been nagging at Maigret, and he’s convinced the others to go along with the charade in hopes of tracking down the real culprit. Maigret guarantees that all will be well, and offers to resign should something go awry. Naturally, the escapee slips through the police surveillance and Maigret has only 10 days to save his career and find the convicted man… or perhaps the actual criminal instead.
Like many of the early Maigret books, this one has a lot of scenes in bars and a lot of river activity. So I’m dusting off my remembrances of chopine, juché, and acajou, as well as of péniches, remorqueurs, débardeurs and the like.
No, not that débardeur… 
…this débardeur