Carolyn Hart
Letter from Home (2003)
Author: Carolyn Hart
Genre: Mystery (Amateur Detective/Cozy)
Plot Summary:
G.G. Gilman is an old woman when she returns home to Oklahoma after she receives a letter from someone she once knew there. She has had a successful career as a journalist, and it all started in the summer of 1944 when she worked as a reporter for her hometown paper, the Gazette. That summer, 13-year-old G.G. (then known as Gretchen) was with her friend Barb when they discovered the body of Barb's artist mother, Faye Tatum. All of the evidence points to Faye's husband Clyde Tatum, who was home on leave from the war and jealous of Faye's habit of dancing with other men at the Blue Light club. Gretchen investigates the crime unconventionally by writing a piece for the paper about how Barb's friends remember her. SPOILER: Gretchen's grandmother helps Clyde Tatum hide, refusing to believe he's guilty. Eventually, he is found dead in an apparent suicide caused by his remorse. When the elderly G.G. returns to Oklahoma, she learns from her friend Barb that Clyde was not the murderer—young Barb had been sleeping with an older, married man when Faye found out and confronted the man. This confrontation led to her death, and the man killed Clyde as well to cover his tracks.
Geographical Setting: A small town in Northeastern Oklahoma
Time Period: Summer 1944
Appeal Characteristics:
Hart's novel contains a plethora of historical detail, from the clothes worn by the women to the day-to-day realities of rationing during World War II. She also captures the down home feel of rural, small-town Oklahoma, blending realism and nostalgia. Within this frame, she places Gretchen Gilman, a 13-year-old aspiring reporter. Rather than over-developing the young newspaperwoman, Hart uses Gretchen's observation-based career to develop the secondary characters. Gretchen's German grandmother is especially vivid and endearing. Over the course of her investigation, Gretchen paints a lifelike picture of the murder victim—artistic, a good mother, full of life. The story is more about the characters than the mystery, and it is written with simple, homespun style. After all of the book's tragedy, there is an uneasy, thoughtful sort of resolution reached at a measured but deliberate pace. Letter from Home won the 2003 Agatha Award and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Read-alikes: Donis Casey's newest Alafair Tucker mystery, The Sky Took Him, should appeal to those who like the historical Oklahoma setting, the focus on familial relationships, and the amateur female detective. It's 1915, and a farmer's wife investigates the murder of her relative who was involved with some shady characters before his death. Like Letter from Home, Michael C. White's A Brother's Bloodalso focuses on a decades-old, WWII era crime in a close-knit rural town where another family is rocked by murder. A German POW is murdered after leaving a Maine logging camp, and his brother wants to know the full story. Another historical cozy with well-drawn characters is Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn, in which Lady Julia investigates the murder of her husband in a locked-door mystery. If a well-drawn, murder-solving journalist is the kind of protagonist you're after, look no further than the classic Cat Who series by Lilian Jackson Braun, starting with The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, in which a journalist solves the murder of an art dealer with the help of his cat, Koko. The secondary characters—cats included!—are just as strong in this small-town cozy. If you like Carolyn Hart's writing style, you might want to try another of her novels. Start with Scandal in Fair Haven, book two of the Henrie O. series. Henrie solves the murder of her nephew's wife by putting together a picture of her life, just as Gretchen tries to do in Letter from Home. The sudden resolution, the unlikely female journalist as investigator, and the character-driven plot will appeal to fans of Hart's later novel.
Red Flags: References to promiscuity, adultery, and a statutory sexual relationship; some language
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