If you like historical mysteries, especially those inspired by real people, check out Katie Tietjen’s solid debut, Death in the Details. Without spoilers, I can say it’s inspired by the real-life mother of forensic science, Frances Glessner Lee. Tietjen’s amateur sleuth, Maple Bishop, is loosely based on Lee and her “Nutshell studies of unexplained deaths”.

In 1946, Maple Bishop is a war widow, penniless and stuck in a small Vermont town where her husband was the town doctor before he enlisted. Although she’s a lawyer, no one will hire a female, so she turns to her hobby hoping to make enough money to pay the mortgage. She asks Ben Crenshaw, the local hardware store owner, if she can set up a small area in his store to demonstrate the making of her dollhouses and miniature scenes. When a grumpy local farmer and his wife commission a dollhouse, Maple is hopeful.

Maple struggles to deliver the completed dollhouse to the Wallace farm, but, despite an appointment, there’s no one there. She does follow her curiosity to the open barn doors, and finds Elijah Wallace hanging in his barn. She’s shocked when Sheriff Sam Scott shows little feeling at the scene of the apparent suicide. The more Maple stares at the scene, though, the more she begins to suspect the dead man may have been murdered. But, the sheriff shows no inclination to believe a little lady who makes dollhouses.

Maple’s angry and reluctant to admit that her own temper and inclination to blurt our the truth does nothing to encourage the sheriff to listen to her. But, her recreation of the barn and death scene as a nutshell crime scene does interest a young deputy who wants to work with her to find the truth.

I found Tietjen’s debut to be solid and fascinating. While Maple Bishop is difficult to like, it’s hard not to sympathize with a lonely war widow who is desperate to make a living in a town equally determined to reject her. Death in the Details is fascinating in the post-World War II depiction of small-town life. I hope Tietjen and her amateur sleuth will continue to examine death scenes through the nutshell crime scenes.

Death in the Details by Katie Tietjen. Crooked Lane Books, 2024. ISBN 9781639107186 (hardcover) 288p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I received a galley through NetGalley in order to review the book for. a journal.