Murder She Wrote: Murder Most Trivial

Murder She Wrote #63

By Jessica Fletcher & Barbara Early

ISBN: 9780593952900

barbaraearly.com

Brought to you by OBS Reviewer Jeanie

Synopsis:

Jessica Fletcher and friends Seth Hazlitt and Maureen and Mort Metzger team up for pub trivia and crush the competition, then are stunned to learn that the prize is a chance to appear in a five-day trivia tournament filming in LA.

No one expects life-or-death stakes! But on day one of the tournament, a crew member is murdered. Who would benefit from derailing the show? Jessica has to come up with the ultimate answer.

In a metafictional twist, the investigation takes Jessica and the gang to the filming locations of their favorite mystery shows, where they discuss how Columbo, Monk, or Jim Rockford might go about solving the case.

Review:

This new addition to the series is wrapped up in a most unusual setting: television game show and technology allowing the at-home audience to play the same game from the comforts of home. The person playing from home submits their responses via an app.

Jessica, her friend, Dr. Seth Hazlitt, and their friends, Sheriff Mort and Maureen Metzger, attended the grand opening of Riley’s Pub. It is advertised as a genuine Irish pub in Cabot Cove, Maine. The owners are Dan, the editor of the local newspaper, Pierce, the fire chief, and his wife, Riley, from Ireland. The food was delicious, the company delightful, and they played pub trivia with several other teams. Jessica, Maureen, Seth, and Mort won a special surprise.

The surprise included their team playing on a new television show that would soon begin. It sounded like great fun, until realizing they had to pay their own expenses, including airfare to LA, meals, and accommodations. Mort and Maureen wanted to go so much that they would forego their special anniversary trip, so Jessica and Seth joined them as a foursome. They practiced in their spare time. Each of the four were expert in different categories, so each person was valuable to the group.

Owners of a retired actress’s mansion in LA, Jessica’s niece Victoria, and her husband, Howard, invited the four to stay there. They were renovating the mansion into a B & B, and said it would be great practice for them. Howard was planning themes for limo tours to popular locations that he shared with them. I enjoyed hearing about some of the landmark diners and restaurants and who had frequented them in the past. One popular eatery was setting for a favorite Monk episode.

Each day, the teams heard the questions, then discussed their answers. Conflicts in their discussion groups resulted in higher ratings, as those conflicts appealed to viewers. One team had twin red-headed brothers who argued with each other to the point Seth feared one or both would have a stroke or heart attack! The home viewers entered their answers in an app and locked them in.

One of the studio crew members, Ray, died. Literally. Dead. At his console. The only positive result was that LAPD’s Lieutenant Caceras and Jessica had met some years ago on a case, and remembered how well they worked with each other.

The following day brought a more somber group of contestants. One team was eliminated each of the first three days, and the remaining three teams would add their scores from days four and five to determine the winner. A death threat had been made against the announcer, and he wanted to break his contract. One of the twin red-heads actually passed out during a discussion period! At Jessica’s suggestion, the police tested the strong-tasting coffee, based on the behaviors of those who had coffee and were the most irritable and nervous. Including Maureen. She didn’t get into a fight, but was more than edgy.

Ray, the crew member who died, had been poisoned. A medication had been mixed in the coffee set out for the crew and contestants. It could lead to edginess, rage, discomfort, and for a person with certain health challenges, even death.

I enjoyed learning more about the regular characters, the competing teams, and Danielle, a former actor and former owner of the mansion. I’ve not seen the side of Jessica before where she mentally listed the differences between Riley’s Pub and a “genuine” Irish pub. This was one of several scenes in which we see that even the most gracious authors are just like the average reader. Many protagonists, including Jessica, rarely discussed expenses (except Seth!). It was refreshing to see our fictional heroes have concerns about travel costs that most readers in a similar situation would have to consider. I also appreciated learning about one of the most vulnerable situations in Jessica’s life, and how she has responded over the years. I enjoyed the discussions about the television detectives and how they worked, especially my favorite one. It was also refreshing to see the ladies barefoot in the sand at the beach, still attired for the show.

Jessica’s team worked together to win, to find who killed Ray and why, and why the coffee pots were drugged. They and the police had several possible motives, some that would never have occurred to me! They also tried to get to the bottom of the sounds of ghosts in the mansion that Victoria and Howard purchased from Danielle, over 100 years old, who has a private suite there for the rest of her life. 

Every situation was resolved, and the ending was very satisfactory. Some of the motives were more complex than I could have solved – hooray for the team from Cabot Cove!  I am already looking forward to the next mystery, and highly recommend this one and the rest of the series!