Book description
The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death offers readers an extraordinary glimpse into the mind of a master criminal investigator. Frances Glessner Lee, a wealthy grandmother, founded the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard in 1936 and was later appointed captain in the New Hampshire police. In the 1940s and 1950s…
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Why read it?
2 authors picked The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
A book of photographs that show the Nutshell Studies in great detail.
This book inspired me to learn more about the wealthy woman who spent so much time creating these hugely detailed crime scenes.
Why? It took more research to learn that she had developed a passion for teaching investigators to follow the old saying "convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth in a nutshell.”
It seems to me this is what the investigator is always trying to do in mystery stories, like the 9 I had already written in my Emily Cabot Mysteries. If a picture…
From Frances' list on real women in criminology.
As a writer and a teacher of writing, I’m always on the lookout for writing prompts, which is how I came to own this gorgeous photography book of the Nutshell Studies: eighteen dollhouse dioramas produced by Frances Glessner Lee, a master criminal investigator in the 1940s, for the purpose of training in forensics. The images are captivating as much as they are disturbing, and represent a rare but perfect marriage of the realms of the miniature and criminal deduction. In his essay on the subject, Stephen Millhauser writes that ‘the miniature holds out the promise of total revelation.’ In Glessner…
From Sam's list on miniature stories about the miniature.
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