Maigret arrives home exhausted after cracking an especially difficult case, only to be awakened within hours by the news of a nearly successful attempt on the life of a colleague. Plainclothes detective Lagnon, known to Maigret as “Inspector Hopeless,” has become involved beyond his depth in an international art fraud and is suffering the consequences. Maigret’s only clue to Lagnon’s assailant is the single word “apparition” spoken by the victim as he emerges from the operating room. The apparition leads Maigret to the highest echelons of the Parisian art world–and the depths of greed and cruelty.