Death in the Details by Katie Tietjen

 

First Lines: Wednesday, October 16, 1946. "Twelve dollars and sixty-seven cents?"

 

Maple Bishop is no stranger to death. Her mother died. So did her brother. Now her husband has died in service to his country. But the discovery that her husband left her penniless puts everything into sharp focus for the grieving woman: she must find a way of earning money so she doesn't lose her home in this small Vermont town. 

 

Maple is the first female Boston City Law School graduate, but no one in town wants to hire her. Fortunately, her eye for detail and her skill have led her to craft intricate dollhouses, and she begins selling them. At first, business is going well until Maple delivers a dollhouse to a customer and finds him dead, hanging from a rafter in his barn.

 

Something about the supposed suicide doesn't seem right to Maple, and in an attempt to figure it out, she recreates the death scene in miniature-- what she calls "death in a nutshell." With the help of a rookie police officer, Maple uses her miniature to dig into the town's secrets... and that makes a murderer very unhappy.

 

~

 

With my interest in dollhouses and miniatures and the author finding inspiration in Frances Glessner Lee, the mother of forensic science, Death in the Details was a book I could not resist. For the most part, this is a very promising start to a new historical series.

The mystery is a strong one and used a factor in World War II life on the homefront that I seldom think about.  The cast of characters is also strong. Maple is smart, has a very handy photographic memory, and has a knack for gathering friends around her-- something which she doesn't seem to be completely aware of.

Her best friend Charlotte and Charlotte's husband Hank run the diner in town, and although I do like Charlotte, if she kept walking into my house unannounced, she wouldn't be my friend for long. Ben, a half-Japanese hardware store owner, Ginger Comstock ("Gossip Central"), and rookie police officer Kenny Quirk round out the major players. Oh, I almost forgot one! Sheriff Sam Scott started life as a cardboard lawman, but I am happy to say that he didn't stay that way.

But... as strong as the mystery and the characters are, one thing really annoyed me: slipshod editing. The book takes place in 1946. When the sheriff tells Maple "Don't get your pantyhose in a twist," it stopped me in my tracks. Did they have pantyhose in 1946? I had to stop and do a little investigating. No, they did not. So... when I find an error like that, it makes me suspicious. Yellowjackets that were hereafter referred to as bees didn't help, and then I found myself doing some digging on the subjects of seatbelts and plywood among other things.

Death in the Details is a strong mystery with a good cast of characters. Unfortunately, it is a bit weak in the details. Will I read the next book in the series? Yes, but I won't be in a rush to do so.

 

Death in the Details by Katie Tietjen

eISBN:  9781639107193

Crooked Lane Books © 2024

eBook, 288 pages

 

Historical Mystery, #1 Maple Bishop mystery

Rating: C+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

The Lady from Burma by Allison Montclair

 

First Line: He sat on the edge of the narrow bed, reaching for the black wool socks he had stuffed into his shoes.

 

Most of the people who come to the Right Sort Marriage Bureau are people trying to start (or restart) their lives in post-war London. But Miss Iris Sparks and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge have a new client who is very different. She is a happily married woman who wants them to find a new wife for her husband. Dying of cancer, she wants to ensure her entomologist, academic husband finds someone new to share his life with.

 

Not long afterward, the woman is found dead in Epping Forest, the victim of an apparent suicide, and that makes absolutely no sense to Sparks and Bainbridge. However, Gwen Bainbridge's attention is focused on her pending appearance in court to regain legal control of her life. All is not going well; the man appointed as her conservator has not been managing her assets in her own best interests. When the conservator is found dead, Gwen naturally becomes the prime suspect. 

 

Solving two deaths at once will be no easy task, but if anyone can do it, you can count on Iris Sparks and Gwen Bainbridge.

 

~

 

Once again, Allison Montclair [pseudonym of Alan Gordon] has a winner in the newest Sparks and Bainbridge historical mystery, The Lady from Burma. The various clients who walk through the doors of the Right Sort Marriage Bureau keep readers firmly in tune with post-World War II London and all the types of people who are trying to put their lives back together. 

 

The solutions to the deaths of the client and the conservator certainly kept me guessing, but I was even more interested in Gwen Bainbridge's fight to regain legal control of her life. Gwen basically came unglued when her husband was killed in the war, and the depth of her grief caused her husband's aristocratic family to take away custody of her young son and to have her committed to a mental institution. It's been an uphill battle, but it is obvious to all the readers of this series that it's more than time for Gwen to be back in charge. Her relationship with her in-laws has evolved slowly, and she's made the effort to learn how to deal with her income once she has it in her own control. What's maddening is her reaction-- in court and directly afterward-- to the machinations of her conservator. I wanted to give her a little shake and yell, "Snap out of it!" Not that I've fallen under the spell of these characters or anything...

 

An absorbing mystery, the engrossing lives of the two main characters, a pitch-perfect setting, and witty dialogue that absolutely sparkles. I love this series and hope that it continues for a good long time. If you haven't had the pleasure of meeting Iris Sparks and Gwen Bainbridge, I suggest you begin at the beginning with The Right Sort of Man. These two very different women make quite a formidable team.

The Lady from Burma by Allison Montclair

eISBN: 9781250854209

Minotaur Books © 2023

eBook, 336 pages

 

Historical Mystery, #5 Sparks & Bainbridge mystery

Rating: A

Source: Net Galley

The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear

 

First Lines: Kent, England. 1947. Every morning as Rose Mackie leaned over the bars of the wooden cot and picked up her three-year-old daughter, she gave thanks for the cottage.

 

Life in her grace-and-favor cottage in the rural English countryside is just what Elinor White has longed for. Although her fellow villagers know that her cottage was provided by the Crown for services rendered during the recent war, they have no idea that her service actually began during World War I... or how dangerous it was.

 

Elinor is happy keeping herself to herself until young farmworker Jim Mackie, his wife Rose, and their tiny daughter Susie are threatened. Jim, too, has worked hard to escape his past. He wants no part of his family's life of organized crime, but his brothers track him down and insist that he comes back for a big job they're planning-- or else.

 

Things are looking rather dire until the Mackies learn that they have Elinor White on their side. You see, Elinor White has worked almost her entire life to ensure that predators never catch their prey. Not on her watch.

 

~

 

Having been a fan of Jacqueline Winspear's long-running Maisie Dobbs series, I looked forward to seeing how her new heroine, Elinor White, would measure up. I'm happy to say that, in The White Lady, Elinor measures up quite nicely although I didn't grow to care for her as I did Maisie.

Readers see Elinor both in 1947 and as a teenager in Belgium during World War I. Her backstory illuminates Elinor's character and makes us wonder just how many other women were forced to do the same things Elinor did in order to survive. One of the most poignant scenes in The White Lady occurs when the young Elinor is attending class once her family has escaped to England. The teacher tells the girls that almost all the young men they could have been expected to marry have been slaughtered in the trenches of World War I, and that means that these girls will have to do well in school and learn how to take care of themselves; there will be no husbands to provide for them, no children to take care of them in their old age.

Elinor carries a lot of guilt for the things she had to do during both wars, and she believes that saving the Mackies from being dragged back into the criminal ways of their family is her chance for redemption. How she goes about saving them uncovers corruption in surprising places.

The White Lady is a strong story with much to say about survival, guilt, and redemption, and Elinor White is a character I wanted to embrace wholeheartedly. However, I always felt as though she never opened the door of her cottage to me, and it was that lack of emotional resonance that spoiled my reading a bit. Your mileage could definitely vary.

 

The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear

eISBN: 9780062868008

HarperCollins © 2023

eBook, 336 pages

 

Historical Mystery, Standalone

Rating: B 

Source: Net Galley

Murder at Shots Hall by Maureen Sarsfield

Title: Murder at Shots Hall
Author: Maureen Sarsfield
ISBN: 0915230550, Rue Morgue Press, 2003
Originally published as Green December Fills the Graveyard, 1945.
Genre: Police Procedural
Rating: A
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: "NO," Flik's aunt had said.

Flikka Ashley and her Aunt Bee Chattock live in Shots Hall in Sussex. Two-thirds of the manor house was destroyed by German bombs, and the two women live in what's left. Poverty is sniffing around outside the big oak door; Flik and Bee do their best to ward it off by selling an occasional bottle of vintage liquor or some of Flik's sculptures, but it's tough going. When Molly Pritchard, an old family retainer, is murdered, Arnoldson, the loathsome local copper, is determined to pin the deed on Flik. Fortunately Scotland Yard Inspector Lane Parry is sent to take charge. Finding the real killer is not going to be a walk in the park.

I seldom read vintage mysteries. It's a rare occurrence when the publishing date on any mystery I read is older than 1990. In many ways, I blame Nancy Drew for this. I tried reading Nancy when I was a child, but I laughed every time she donned a fresh frock and jumped into her roadster. No, my preference has almost always gone to the current crop of crime. Now that I've read Murder at Shots Hall, my preferences may need a bit of adjusting.

The author, Maureen Sarsfield, is every bit as much of a mystery as two of the three books she wrote. Her two mysteries, Murder at Shots Hall and Murder at Beechlands, feature Inspector Lane Parry of Scotland Yard. Both books were published in the late 1940s and quickly picked up by American publishers, which was unusual for that time. However, after three books, Sarsfield vanished and no one knows what happened to her.

I wish she had continued to write because this book shows real talent. Sarsfield shows a knack for setting, plot, pacing, humor, and characterization. Almost every bit of it is shown through dialogue and action-- Sarsfield does not tie bibs around our necks and spoon feed us information. I like that. A lot.

The small village is filled to the rafters with suspects because everyone's personal habits and business is common knowledge to all, and Sarsfield's skill brings them to life while Parry struggles to keep them all straight. Congreve, a police constable who's a welcome bit of comic relief, sums it up best:

"This is like driving a car along the road and every corner another passenger 'ops on board," Congreve decided cheerfully.

"All I can say is," Parry grunted, "that I hope the springs don't give way from the strain."

Does the author ever put a foot wrong? Occasionally. If I had a dollar for each time Flik is described as lovely, my next trip to the UK would be assured. The description of the loathsome local copper is a bit heavy-handed (although enjoyable in spots), and the resident doctor may be thought of as heartless unless the reader is truly paying attention. I have to admit that none of this counted for much because I was enjoying the story and the writing so much. I couldn't even be bothered to slap myself upside the head when the killer's identity was revealed. What should have been obvious to me was buried beneath my delight as I turned the pages.

After finishing-- and thoroughly enjoying-- Murder at Shots Hall, I have two things to say: (1) It's a shame that Sarsfield only wrote three books. The lady had true talent. (2) I feel fortunate that I have her second mystery sitting on my shelves waiting for me.

I think I'm going to let it sit there for a while. A treat should be savored.