Marilyn's Mystery Reads

If you are ever asked whether you can learn anything from mystery novels, just say absolutely and direct them to Katie Tietjen’s excellent debut novel Death in the Details.

The novel is based in part on the true story of Frances Glessner Lee’s life and how she created “Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death,” miniature recreations of crime scenes to help homicide detectives in their pursuits of criminals.  Those “nutshells” are still in use today.  Glessner Lee went on to help create the science of forensic medicine in the United States, helped establish the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard, and became the first female police captain in the country.

Death in the Details is as fascinating as Glessner Lee’s own life was.  The novel takes place in 1946 in the small town of Elderberry, Vermont, where Mabel “Maple” Bishop had moved shortly after her marriage to Bill Bishop and where he started his medical practice after the retirement of the town’s previous physician, his close friend and mentor Dr. Murphy.

Bill volunteered for army service, even though he was over draft age.  He was killed in the war, and now Maple is completely alone.  She’s also close to destitute, because although her late husband had a busy practice, the townspeople tended to pay their bills “in kind” rather than cash—chickens, home baked bread, and casseroles regularly appeared on their doorstep in place of the money they didn’t have.

Although Maple is a law school graduate, no one is willing to hire a “woman lawyer.”  She doesn’t think she has any other marketable skills until she realizes that in fact she does—she makes miniature dollhouses filled with tiny people, minute furniture, and decorated walls.

Ben Crenshaw, owner of Elderberry’s hardware store, comes up with an idea that he hopes will benefit them both.  He suggests that she build and sell her dollhouses in the shop’s front window, thus bringing additional customers into the store to purchase them and hopefully to buy his wares as well.

Her first customer is Angela Wallace, who tells Maple that she’d like to purchase a dollhouse decorated like the house in which she and her sister lived as children.  Her unpleasant husband reluctantly agrees to the sale, giving Maple a down payment and saying it must be completed by the next day for her to get the balance.

When Maple arrives at the farmhouse the following morning, no one answers the front door.  Thinking that the couple might be in their barn, she pushes the wheelbarrow containing the dollhouse there and sees Elijah Wallace hanging from the barn’s hay hoist.  She rushes into the house and calls the police.  When they arrive, her observations and thoughts about Wallace’s death are brusquely dismissed.  “What’s to investigate?” Sheriff Scott asks.  In his mind, Maple’s concerns are baseless and that it’s a case of suicide.

Maple’s fight to convince the sheriff that her “nutshell” can be valuable in the investigation, her sometime alliance with the young deputy sheriff, and her determination to keep working on the case although she’s repeatedly warned off by Detective Scott make this mystery a fascinating one.

With a heroine combining a strong resolve not to give up until the truth comes out and a group of townspeople who may or may not be helping her, Death in the Details is an outstanding debut novel.  You can read more about Katie Tietjen at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.