Debut
This ingenious historical novel begins in post WWII Vermont, where Maple Bishop is enduring a tidal wave of loss – she’s lost her brother, her mother and her husband, and, as the insurance company informs her in the opening chapter, most of her money. She has $12 to her name, no way to pay her mortgage and, since she and her husband donated its tires to the war effort, a car she can neither drive nor sell.
What keeps her (and the book) going is her obsession with building dollhouses. She can’t stop herself, and her garage workshop is full of the things, complete with idealized dolls living idealized doll lives. When she goes into the hardware store to purchase supplies, the owner, sensing a promotional opportunity, offers her a corner to set up shop, in order to bring in customers and spice up his window display.
She agrees and wheelbarrows her things over the next day. Business starts with a bang when a couple wants to commission a house made to look like a miniature version of the wife’s childhood home. Maple agrees, even as she notes the bruises on the wife’s arm and the bullying manner of the husband. When she goes to deliver it a few days later she finds the man hanging by his neck in the barn and the wife nowhere to be found. Shaken, she calls the police, but even as she’s waiting to be questioned her mind is already troubled by details that don’t quite add up.
While Maple’s dollhouses might keep her occupied, they don’t bring her much joy. Weirdly, where she does find her bliss is in the small-scale re-construction of the crime scene she witnessed. When she shows her “nutshell” creation to the sheriff, however, he says the case is closed and the death has been conclusively ruled an accident. His young deputy offers a more sympathetic ear, however, and the two of them begin to investigate together.
Unfortunately there’s not too many people who will give credence to a dollhouse lady and a rookie deputy, but Maple’s single minded determination to “find what’s big in what’s small” won’t let her give in. She’s a wonderful character who has discovered a desperately needed purpose despite all her losses. I also liked the relationship between her and the deputy, who has his own family wartime sorrows to deal with.
It’s a brilliant concept for a mystery. Maple is based on the real Frances Glessner Lee, who did in fact create crime scene dollhouses and is considered the mother of crime scene investigation. I liked the fierce energy of this book and its protagonist, who manages to reclaim a glimpse of joy through the shadows of her loss by the end of the book. Death in the Details is a unique combination of a craft-based cozy and a police novel, and the result is a truly wonderful debut. — Robin Agnew