Status
Call number
Publication
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 she built dollhouse crime scenes based on real cases in order to train detectives to assess visual evidence. Still used in forensic training today, the eighteen Nutshell dioramas, on a scale of 1:12, display an astounding level of detail: pencils write, window shades move, whistles blow, and clues to the crimes are revealed to those who study the scenes carefully. Corinne May Botz's lush color photographs lure viewers into every crevice of Frances Lee's models and breathe life into these deadly miniatures, which present the dark side of domestic life, unveiling tales of prostitution, alcoholism, and adultery. The accompanying line drawings, specially prepared for this volume, highlight the noteworthy forensic evidence in each case. Botz's introductory essay, which draws on archival research and interviews with Lee's family and police colleagues, presents a captivating portrait of Lee.… (more)
User reviews
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!
Then, there's the text which reads like a gender studies book from the 70s, about how the closed window may represent the female victim's circumscribed life, stuff like that. The descriptions of the rooms throw in quotes from all over the place that sound hip but don't seem to actually have anything to do with the scene. There are also a lot of editing errors, like referring to a location as "the premise" instead of "the premises". In one of the crime scenes there's a picture of an elk over the fireplace, and the text goes on about how there's a picture of a moose and what is the significance of a picture of the largest mammal in North America? Well, NONE, because it isn't a moose, it's an elk.
Most annoying of all, since most the rooms are still being used to train detectives, the solutions to the problems aren't included. It's like reading a mystery with the last chapter torn out.
I normally don't read the introductions to photography books, but in this case I'm glad I did. Lee was a fascinating woman, well worth a full biography (which I'd love to read if it exists) and there was just enough analysis of the models as art to fulfill my curiosity, but not too much. They weren't conceptualized as art, after all, even if they were executed as such.