Death in the Details by Katie Tietjen

Death in the Details
by Katie Tietjen

ISBN-13: 9781639107186
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Released: April 9, 2024

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Inspired by the real life Frances Lee Glessner.

Maple Bishop is ready to put WWII and the grief of losing her husband Bill behind her. But when she discovers that Bill left her penniless, Maple realizes she could lose her Vermont home next and sets out to make money the only way she knows by selling her intricately crafted dollhouses. Business is off to a good start—until Maple discovers her first customer dead, his body hanging precariously in his own barn.

Something about the supposed suicide rubs Maple the wrong way, but local authorities brush off her concerns. Determined to see “what’s big in what’s small,” Maple turns to what she knows best, painstakingly recreating the gruesome scene in death in a nutshell.

With the help of a rookie officer named Kenny, Maple uses her macabre miniature to dig into the dark undercurrents of her sleepy town. But when her nemesis, the town gossip, goes missing, she becomes a suspect, she's determined to solve the mysteries before someone else ends up dead.


My Review:
Death in the Details is a mystery set in 1946 Vermont. I've read about Frances Lee Glessner's work of making miniature crime scenes and was intrigued with a sleuth based on her, but making miniatures of crime scenes seems to be the only similarity between them. While the author wove historical details into the story to give it a distinct sense of time and place, she also used several phrases that didn't come into use until after that date. She also mentioned seat belts, but those weren't added to cars until after 1949. Wrong details like this kept me from getting immersed in the story.

The mystery was clue-based, but Maple was so certain that her judgements about others were correct that she couldn't see the obvious. I had most of the whodunit worked out back when the murder was discovered. The crime scene miniature was mostly a way for Maple to demonstrate her theories. Maple wasn't very likable at the beginning and only slowly learned how to get people to listen to her. She was very socially inept, and it didn't help that she assumed the worst about others and didn't hesitate to let a person know that she held them in contempt--which was most people. However, she's devoted to justice, has a photographic memory, is observant, and likes everything to be neatly explained, so she got it solved.

There was a minor amount of bad language. There was no sex. Overall, I'd recommend this novel, but more to historical fiction fans as the story was more about Maple growing as a person than the mystery.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.