This episode opens with a startling, gruesome murder on a dance stage with children and their parents in attendance. Few possible suspects requires a tedious search for a motive. A drop in by her mother and a senior suitor are complications that disconcert but do not deter the lieutenant. A solid entry in this good series. ( )

Sigrid Harald investigates the brutal murder of a popular dancer, which took place on stage, in full view of an audience including many of the children taking dance lessons from the victim. Everyone with opportunity seemed to have loved her, motive is hard to come by, and despite the number of witnesses, no one can identify the killer. Tricky business, complicated by possible connections to a previous murder, with an interesting secondary plot that gives the book its title. Good stuff. A couple quibbles -- too many "colorful" references to the skin of a Chinese man and a Latino man, and to the hair of various female characters; these added nothing to the plot and struck me as completely unnecessary; the murder "weapon" also seemed to present an unwarranted hazard, even without evil intent, and I found it an unlikely component of an amateur stage production. Still, a good puzzle, with clues for the careful reader. The Harald series is so much darker than Maron's Judge Knott books.
December 2017 ( )

Synopsis: A promising dancer is killed on stage and Sigrid must investigate. In the audience is a child psychologist who happens to know Sigrid and would like her mother to photograph some of the children under her care. The children she is caring for saw their mother murdered and she is trying to help the youngest cope with this. She is also helping the children at the theater deal with the death of the dancer. The murder of the dancer might tie into the murder of one of the children in the dance troupe. It's a tangle that Sigrid must figure out. And in her private life, Sigrid has finally admitted that she is attracted to Oscar Neuman.
Review: In this book there are two distinct and separate story lines. One is predictable (children and the psychiatrist) and one is not. In any case, both were interesting and well written. ( )