The Great Houses of Pill Hill

by Diane Josefowicz

Genres: General Fiction; Family Life; Marriage & Divorce; Mystery; Amateur Sleuth; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

A scintillating, wickedly intricate locked-room mystery following an unconventional woman who makes miniatures of murder scenes and finds herself entangled in a real one when the client of her dream job turns up dead.

Hannah “Cookie” Cooke, an interior decorator with a sideline making miniature reproductions of crime scenes for the local police department, lands her dream job when New Preston’s wealthiest couple hires her to renovate their historic New England home. But things go spectacularly wrong when her client Chuck—with whom she is having an affair—is murdered at the housewarming party.

The detective on the case commissions one of Cookie’s miniatures to help solve the baffling murder. While grappling with her own complicated role in Chuck’s life—and the thorny layers of her own envies, resentments, and ambitions—Cookie delves into the strange details of his death, including his overly involved therapist, his wife’s nebulous textile empire, and a room decorated in nineteenth-century Egyptian kitsch hidden on the premises. In untangling the mystery, Cookie reveals an ugly truth about New Preston’s elite that might prove deadly.

At once an irreverent interpretation of the hard-boiled genre and a skewering of traditional domesticity, this show-stopping work of crime fiction is crackling with narrative voice, resulting in a read that is equally engrossing and electrifying.

Release date: May 5, 2026

Publisher: Soho Crime

Print pages: 368

Sample

1

My real name is Hannah Cooke, but no one ever calls me that. New Preston’s druggist gummed me to my nickname, murmuring Cookie, Cookie, Cookie Cooke while my mother signed for her tranquilizer refill and I faked an interest in the paperbacks on the spinner rack. I was a lousy actress and a ruinous blusher, a child unused to attention.

It could have been worse. He could have called me Hard Tack or Sour Pickle, both accurate assessments of my personality in those days. But he chose a sweet name, and like all sugary things, it stuck. Occasionally he slipped me an old-time candy—a licorice, a horehound drop. Accepting these gifts, I discovered myself: a body with a sweet tooth and an appetite for nostalgia. Like the houses I restore, I’m built for a more extravagant era, when architects made allowances for the sweep of a woman’s hip. As an interior designer, I believe all curb appeal is relative, specific to a time and place; as a person who values appetites, I am unmoved by appeals to curb mine.

If that sounds harsh, blame New Preston. We use things up; we wear them out. If there’s a wound, we salt it. Isn’t that what wounds are for? Sometimes I wonder if I’d be happier elsewhere, away from this small town with its elaborate historic houses and the secrets they conceal. It’s not that my doubts take me by surprise. Not much, at this point, takes me by surprise. But I do find it strange how the question keeps coming up, like an upholstery tack I don’t know I’ve lost until it lodges in the callus of my heel.

Cross my heart, hope to die: That first time in Chuck Halsey’s bedroom, all I took were measurements. I paced them off the old-fashioned way, heel-to-toe, no tape. With its top-nailed floor and fireplace of marble veined delicately as flesh, the room set me to dreaming as soon as I laid eyes on it. Okay, fine—on him.

Chuck had many requirements for the room in which he failed to sleep. Chief among them was that he should not have to share it with his wife. To that problem I had my own solution but as it was not décor-related, I kept my mouth shut and my options open. I once asked Chuck to describe his ideal bedroom. He said: Give me an oblivion of light.

He was a neurosurgeon, and in expansive moods he talked like one—imperious, boastful of his smarts. I gave him what he wanted: I painted the bedroom a clinical white and finished the trim in the same shade, maximum gloss. I installed a skylight, modern up-lights, a galaxy of spots. Bright enough during the day, the room at night frankly blazed, in deference to Chuck, who preferred to work through his sleeplessness rather than spinning in his bed like a pig on a spit—which, in terms of char, is more or less what he became. The authorities say they’re better equipped to judge such matters, having seen all manner of human destruction, but they don’t know him the way I do. Did.

Better to remember what was beautiful: the sailcloth blinds in pale straw, the kantha quilt of sun-bleached silk, the snowy flokati I set adrift beside the bed. Whenever I touch the replica, a tiny manufacturer’s swatch, I remember the spring of the original against the bare soles of my feet.

The deadbolt was Chuck’s addition. I suppose he felt safer with the door locked against all comers, including those inside the house. But could I be blamed for providing what his wife would not? I stepped in; I stepped up. There was a need; I met it. Just as I am doing now, after hours in the basement forensics lab of New Preston’s finest, attempting to complete this absurd commission.

Reproducing a crime scene in miniature should, in theory, be no different from making a mock-up of any other room. But this time, I’m working for the police, and the project is extremely personal. Detective Bill Phelps, who has commissioned similar items from me in the past, joked that I might even find the gig therapeutic, given my prior involvement.

The deadbolt wasn’t the only oddity. There was a fresh gouge in the window casement, and a dusting of powder revealed a handprint on the pane. After a UV beam lit up bloodstains on the flokati, I opened a vein for verisimilitude’s sake and allowed my blood to pool on the swatch. To reproduce the smoke stain over the mantel, I used a custard torch. The stain matched the one in the evidence photos only after I’d folded Chuck in half—the doll-sized version, I mean—and tucked him up the chimney. Whereupon my torch died, and I was forced to resort to oven matches. The fire burned differently around his bulk, a detail that had escaped me until I burned my own hands reconstructing the catastrophe.

You can learn a lot from a miniature. I kept the scale of mine conventional, one inch to the foot.



2

We met for the first time just over a year ago, one morning in autumn on the shabby side of Pill Hill. The day broke clear and cold with a kicking wind. The house, a brick pile on a narrow lot, was sandwiched between a peeling pair of Queen Annes, each topped with a witch’s cap. Numb-fingered on the sidewalk, I fiddled with my camera. I needed just a handful of shots, images of before to be saved for redemption in some TBD after.

My heart beat fast. The job wasn’t mine, not yet—but I wanted it.

For one thing, the house oozed history. Built in 1880, it was the pet project of architect Russell Warren, extravagant golden boy of New Preston’s otherwise staid and truncated Gilded Age. For another, it was gorgeous. Warren liked his houses high, wide, and crusted with baroque details—intricately patterned slate roofs, stained glass fanlights, hand-carved trim. Confected from an immense quantity of mustard brick, this particular Warren manse had been a showstopper, once upon a time.

I nabbed clear shots of the gapped slate roof, a rotting soffit, and copper gutters hanging skew, the work of some local rip-off artist, a type with which the neighborhood abounded despite its genteel façade. That’s Pill Hill for you. The name suggests the story: a once-fashionable neighborhood filled with doctors. When they decamped for greener pastures—private practices in the suburbs—the place filled up with weeds and needles. The hospital hung on, though, and easy mortgage terms have recently struck the first sparks of an upswing, although on most days it all still feels like hype. For one thing, everyone has a prescription for the new painkillers, and business is brisk at the methadone clinic, though no one has yet been so bold as to posit a link. At any rate, my would-be clients, the Halseys, had bought in. Either they were completely ignorant of what they had signed up for, or else they were extremely rich. I knew which option I preferred.

I ducked under the portico and tapped my office number into my phone. The line connected with a crash.

Fuckity fuck, shouted my assistant.

Organized and detail-oriented, Fiona Dunne is a godsend when it comes to the practicalities of running a small business, but night school has taken its toll, and no one would mistake her for a morning person.

Fiona, it’s me. Is everything okay?

Goddamn, Cookie. Your dumb library stool just came between me and my coffee.

In my mind’s eye, I staged the room: Fiona sprawled on the floor amid my sample books and blueprints and the scrambled contents of her school bag, broken Conté crayons and lumps of graphite everywhere, the coffee machine glugging as the library stool rolled toward the sunny corner by the worktable. My twin brindle mutts would be stretched beside the radiator, oblivious as always. Perhaps one would lift its head. They were hard to shock, those two.

Are you bleeding?

Please hold, she said. I am applying direct pressure.

You’re bleeding!

Never mind, Cookie. It’s just a flesh wound. What’s the deal with the Halsey house?

I’ve renovated some dumps, I said, but nothing like this. The owners are going to need about a thousand permits. Electrical, plumbing, exterior—the works.

What do you figure for the upside? she asked.

The only people who buy into these disasters are romantics with money to burn, I said.

A black sports car slipped beneath the porte-cochère. Behind the wheel, buttoned into a luxe trench coat, sat a dark-haired man—the driver, I assumed, from his detached clock-puncher’s expression. He had one gloved hand on the steering wheel; with the other, he cradled a flip phone away from his face. The car rolled to a stop. A statuesque blond draped in a whiskey mink emerged from the passenger side, her white shirt open at the neck to show off tanned collarbones. She hooked a cream leather tote over one elbow and strode up the steps. Summiting, she turned and, unsmiling, raised her hand. There was something peremptory in the gesture.

Bye, Fiona. The client’s here.

I am manifesting richness, Fiona said. Please let them be rich.

In the shadowy foyer, an immense chandelier hung down, its cut-glass facets furred with dust, every socket empty. Some people take everything, even the light bulbs, when they leave.

Lana said her own name, and I took the buttery gloved hand she extended.

So you’re Hannah Cooke.

Call me Cookie.

A flicker of irritation unsettled her features, breaking their expensive symmetry.

Cookie, she said. Right.

There was a silence. I let it unfold. Her gaze swept over me.

I know this place doesn’t look like much, she purred. Everyone says we’re crazy. But I bet you of all people must know what it’s like.

Like what’s like?

Her face rearranged itself again, and she vouchsafed a tiny smile.

Oh, well—what it’s like to fall in love with something that doesn’t exist yet.

Of course, I replied.

Of course, she repeated, touching my arm in a gesture that was supposed to be warm but wasn’t.

I followed her through the grand rooms while she ran her mouth, telling me all about how she and her husband had lucked into this pile. The sellers had telegraphed every move. By the closing, she practically had them eating out of her French-manicured hands.

I nodded at the right junctures and made admiring noises.

In the hallway Lana yanked back some loose carpet. Underneath was original parquetry, thin strips of pale oak inlaid with mahogany, each strip bitten at intervals by a pair of tiny nails.

I bet this whole floor’s like this, I breathed. It was, in fact, breathtaking.

That’s the bet we made, too.

Here was common ground, a moment on which to capitalize. I brushed my fingers over a figured brass doorknob with an agreeable patina.

You’ve acquired something truly special, I said.

She looked hard at me, but once again, I held my tongue, and after a moment she softened.

I hope so, she said. She gestured at a chipped molding: Can that be repaired?

It’s all very doable. Nothing here’s so broken it can’t be fixed.

The wind rose, rattling the windows, and a creak issued from the direction of the damaged soffit. Oh, it was all doable, but this project was going to require patience, fortitude, and plenty of TLC—tender loving cash. Not that Lana couldn’t secure it. Although she looked every inch the New Preston matron—socially adroit, charming in a way that didn’t invite inconvenient intimacies—she was the driving force behind Lana Pura, a line of home textiles that routinely sold out of the better department stores from New York to Boston.

How’s business? I asked, to change the subject.

We have our ups and downs. It beats Junior League.

Junior League? You hardly seem the type.

Correct, she snapped. I am not the type.

There was the boundary: She would tell me what reality was, and I would agree. My fee increased by fifteen percent, the diva premium.

Downstairs, Lana led me through a glassed-in music room that gave onto a crumbling veranda. It was easy to imagine the scions of New Preston gathered here, sipping champagne from glittering flutes even as the jimsonweed shot up through the decking, sending its noxious shoots everywhere. I started to cough and found I could not stop.

Are you all right? Lana asked, alarmed.

I could use some water, I wheezed. This place does have an energy.

Lana beckoned me down a narrow, uncarpeted passage. I recognized it from other nearby houses of the same vintage: This was the servants’ corridor. It led to the kitchen, a small galley that was striking in its modesty after all those grandly proportioned rooms. She rummaged in a cupboard until she found a glass. She filled it from the tap and handed it to me. As I drank, she ran her fingertips along the battered laminate countertop and scowled at what she found there.

I can hook you up with a housekeeping service, I said, my voice still thick with whatever I’d inhaled in the music room. Landscaping, too, I added, if you want.

It’s not that, she replied. Or not just that. This kitchen, I don’t know. It’s so dinky.

I looked away, suppressing a smile. I couldn’t imagine Lana had time most nights to do more than dress an avocado, but here she was, dreaming of a magazine kitchen.

It doesn’t match the rest of the house at all, she continued.

It’s probably a late addition. Built for someone who needed something stripped down. Manageable.

Lana rinsed her fingers and shook them dry, spattering droplets on the tiny electric stovetop, the narrow refrigerator.

I couldn’t manage anything in this kitchen!

It’s giving Semi-Homemade, for sure, I said.

She laughed, a big open-mouthed haw-haw, but she kept her eyes trained on mine. I still hadn’t passed her test.