This book is amazing. Though the content is likely a bit morbid for most to consider it a coffee table book, had I coffee table, it would definitely be prominently displayed on mine. The book discusses the career of Frances Glessner Lee, a woman Corinne May Botz describes as:

“…brilliant, witty , and, by some accounts, impossible woman. She gave you what she thought you should have, rather than what you might actually want. She had a wonderful sense of humor about everything and everyone, excluding herself. The police adored and regarded her as their “patron saint,” her family was more reticent about applauding her and her hired help was “scared to death of her.”

Raised in an ultra-traditional, very wealthy family, Lee spent a good majority of her young life thwarted, though she was exposed to home decorating skills that would stand her in good stead when she began making the Nutshell Studies. Unable to attend college as she wanted, once her parents died, Lee started to come into her own, both metaphorically and literally, as she then had plenty of wealth to support her interests. She met a man by the name of George Magrath, a medical examiner who testified in criminal cases in New England. Magrath enthralled the young Lee, and it was through Magrath and his knowledge that Lee began to see what would become her life work.

Read the rest of the review here: http://ireadoddbooks.com/?p=147 ( )

Wish there was a little more in the way of explanation of the probable 'solution' to the crimes, but the book mentions that the dollhouses are still being used to train police, so they can't give solutions to all of them.

The dissection of the crime scene that follows the photography of the models is nice, although some of the commentary and interpretation - ranging from crime scene investigators to quotes from Simone deBeauvior - are a bit overwrought at times. The commentator is clearly a David Lynch fan, as references are made to both "Blue Velvet" and "Twin Peaks"...

Sometimes I wasn't sure that the photography was done in the best way possible - the commentary called attention to certain details that were obscured by the photographs presented, which made me feel a little cheated at times.

But overall, I thought this was a well-produced book that highlighted the subject matter. The material on the production of the dollhouses helped me to be even more impressed by them than I was at first glance! Imagine knitting a pair of doll-sized stockings with two straight pins! ( )

The essays and photographs were neat, but not what I was expected. I was initially very disappointed that the scenes did not have a solution. A few scenes did have a proposed solution at the very end, but even for those, the information required to solve the story was not visible in the photographs.

So, an interesting story of a woman's life's work, and attention to detail. But not a set of solvable mysteries.

I am glad I read this, but glad that I did not buy it! ( )