Previously shown as Murder in Montmartre when it was adapted by the BBC in the 1960s. The first ever Maigret in the Rupert Davies version is the opener of the second series in the Michael Gambon iteration.
There are two Oscar nominees in the cast with Minnie Driver and Brenda Blethyn.
Driver plays Arlette, a stripper at Picratt's nightclub in Montmartre. After work she stops a policeman and tells him that she overheard a plot to murder a countess.
She later retracts the statement but is later found dead. Maigret discovers that Countess von Farnhem has been killed. She was a drug user, selling off her assets to fund her drug habit. He also finds out that one of his officers Inspector Lapointe was romantically involved with Arlette.
The owner of Picratt's nightclub, who uses the strippers for his own pleasure is regarded as the main suspect. However Maigret later becomes interested in a man known as Oscar.
He uses a drug addict called Philippe (Michael Sheen) to lure Oscar out to the open.
Despite the cast, I thought this was atmospheric but pedestrian. The ending with Oscar was anticlimactic. There should had been more buzz once Oscar came into the scene.