Murder in the Museum (1980) by Jo Frisbie and Gunnar Horn
Good Reads meta-data is 177 pages, rated by 0 litizens!
DNA: Aksarben.
Genre: Krimi.
Verdict: Slow and steady wins the race.
Tagline: Very slow.
It was a strange museum display to begin with and it got stranger when a cadaver was slipped into it. But if you can suspend that disbelief what follows is a small town (Red Cloud by another name) mystery.
There is a lot of dithering, confusion, and some repetition but it is all credible, if annoying. Life is like that.
The county attorney and sheriff (both elected officials) combine and sometimes clash to sift the evidence as the plot is thickened with another corpse. But I got confused because on page 95 some clues are spotted and bagged then twice later on pages 105 and 160 their existence is denied. I must have missed something. Maybe I blinked. Ç’est la vie.
The authors have combined on five other stories, one of which I read ages ago. They are hard to find so try Abe or Alibris.
By the way, Murder in the Museum is a well used title. I noticed at least a half-a-dozen other instances.