No. 7 in the Lieutenant Sigrid Harald series. A past-it detective is shot on his way home from a routine late night ramble with his dog. A young Police Administrative Aide from the precinct he had been temporarily assigned to meets an untimely end a few nights later. Sigrid puzzles over the detective's connection to her long-dead father, and ultimately finds another connection that could be the key to both deaths. Pieces of her parents' past are revealed to her, with consequences apparently reserved for the next book! Oscar Nauman appears only in answering machine messages, but Sigrid takes another reluctant step or two in the direction of fashion when her grandmother sends her a gift certificate for an expensive make-over which includes "having her colors done". Lots of fun for the reader, if not for Sigrid. Perfect distraction for a couple lazy afternoons ( )

Solid police procedural as two disparate murders come together to cast a shadow over Sigrid's team. This series continues to produce good stories. ( )

This is my second Maron novel and I'm hooked. Again Lieutenant Sigrid Harald is the focus of the crime and solution especially since a cop is suspected to be the killer and the descriptions and other hints suggest it may be her dead father's best friend. An interesting aspect of Maron's narrative technique was to have a second narrator, a Sergeant in her detachment who is put on the investigative team when it seems clear that a cop is the killer.

The question asked by the novel is "Who polices the police?" The answer is the Internal Affairs Department, a group who are never appreciated by fellow police officers. In this story we can see how the atmosphere changes in an investigative unit when they all fall under suspicion.

Sigrid learns her "perfect" father was a real human with weaknesses like everyone else and while she is hurt by the revelations, she learns much about her mother's strength and character from the revelations. We also learn how her father died, something that hovered in the background in the previous Sigrid Harald novel I read. ( )

Synopsis: Oscar is off at a convention while Sigrid is holding things together at the precinct. She hears that one of the officers she transferred back to his original area has been killed. Not long after a clerk is also killed. It isn't apparent that the two are connected until they find that the gun that killed the officer was run through her computer. Very soon it also becomes evident that both were killed by someone working for the police. Sigrid's team is taken off the case, but she keeps up with what is happening and with the help of Tillie identified the culprit and helps bring him down.
Review: Another page turner. ( )

One of the best in this excellent series. ( )