Maigret and the Burglar's Wife
Maigret and the Burglar's Wife 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, former prostitute, whom he had arrested many years before. She informs him that a night previously her husband had been in the act of burgling a house when he discovered a woman’s dead body. Horrified, he had fled the scene, and then left the country - writing to his wife by letter. Maigret is inclined to investigate a wealthy dentist, who lives with his domineering mother, and has a Dutch wife who has apparently "gone away to visit her home country” - 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.