I am absolutely floored that this school year is over and I know I say that every year but this year really did fly by.
As I always do at the end of a school year, I sit here feeling as if I didn’t do enough, teach enough, or find enough educational opportunities. Looking back through photographs and the paperwork I’ve gathered together for our end-of-the-year portfolio, though, we did a lot more than I realized.
This was The Boy’s final year of school and he did a lot less for me than I wanted to but he was also enrolled in a building and construction class at the local technical school and gained way more experience and education there than I could have offered him.
We did work on some English reading, including Sherlock Holmes and Beowulf, but he also read or listened to several books independently throughout the year. He also researched quite a bit of history on the Byzantine empire on his own and then learned about how to paint Warhammer models.
Many afternoons were also spent helping his grandfather with various home DIY projects and property upkeep and he helped the local cemetery association clean up the cemetery, including the gravestones
While he isn’t yet sure how he wants to use the education he received there, he will always have that knowledge in his future, whether it is for an occupation or in his everyday life.
He’s taking some time off and easing into his next step, something his dad and I support.
He still has a couple of things to write up for me and then his portfolio, which I will present to our state-certified evaluator next week, will be done.
Little Miss and I had a lot more variety in our education this year with not all of it focused on worksheets or physical curriculum. We studied subjects in a more relaxed way, spending more time on subjects that interested us instead of feeling like we had to quickly move ahead.
We did use some curriculum, such as BJU for English and The Good and The Beautiful for science. We also accessed an online curriculum called CTC Math for our math course, and combined that with The Good and the Beautiful, Math with Confidence, and worksheets.
For history and literature, we read historical fiction, including The Sign of the Beaver, Johnny Tremain, The Littlest Voyageur, and Caddie Woodlawn, while watching or reading supplemental material for the subjects each of those books dealt with.
We mixed lessons about Pennsylvania history in with our regular history. We are required to teach history about our state at some point during our children’s elementary school years, but I focus on Pennsylvania and local history at some point in the year, every year.
This year we had the added information about our family fighting in the Civil War, which I researched more of as I wrote a couple of blog posts about that subject.
In the beginning of the year, we attended a two-month art class sponsored by the local library and led by a local artist. He honestly did not teach much at all (and I probably would not attend a class with him again), but having the chance to interact with other children was the main benefit of that experience.
We also attended a couple of field trips with the local homeschool group. That group only met once a month, though, so the opportunity for socializing was not as strong as I had hoped.
Next school year we hope to join a local co-op for some more hands-on learning and interaction with other homeschool students.
There was a time of adjustment for Little Miss that is continuing because one of her homeschool friends was sent to public school this year. That left her without friends to interact with, which is one reason we have signed her up for VBS events, 4-H clubs, and library events this summer.
She participated in a 4-H cooking class in the spring, which she thoroughly enjoyed.
We read books either together or separately throughout the year. Little Miss read two and a half Harry Potter books this past school year. She’s almost done with the third.
Together we listened to Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink and The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis. Out loud to her, I read The Saturdays and The Four-Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright and Miracle on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorenson, as well as Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (later learned this is usually read by eighth graders), The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare, and The Littlest Voyageur by Margi Preus. We also listened to part of Miracle on Maple Hill on Audible.
In the 2025-2026 school year we plan to use some curriculum but also leave ourselves open for more exploration and relaxed education. This doesn’t mean Little Miss will be left to do whatever she wants, when she wants, but she will have more of a say in what she learns and how.
She will be in fifth grade, and I want her to have a more relaxed educational experience that will let her feel less like education is a chore and instead make it feel like it is something fun and exciting to do.
I’m researching curriculum now and have already been given some great ideas in groups and by Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, who homeschools her son Wyatt.
We are also starting homeschooling activities in July this year, instead of August. In Pennsylvania you can count any activities held after July 1 toward the next year’s hours/days so if we participate in anything remotely educational this summer, I will be counting that toward our final hours. This will allow Little Miss and I to take breaks throughout the school year at any time we need to, without losing educational time.
Honestly, every day offers some sort of education, but I am not the kind of parent who can do something very minor and count that toward school. I know some parents would count a walk down the street as PE and call it a day, but I feel there needs to be active learning of some kind going on for it to count as a full day of school.
What is nice about homeschooling is that there is no real wrong way to do it (unless you sit your kid in front of a gaming device all day, every day, and teach them nothing). There are a variety of avenues to reach the ultimate goal of homeschooling, which is to provide a child with a well-rounded and complex educational experience that goes beyond the four walls of a classroom.
I am excited to see what the 2025-2026 school year will bring us and I’ll try to keep my blog readers updated on it better than I did this school yar.
Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.
You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog, and providing a link so readers can learn more about it.
Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.
Thank you for stopping by this week! We are still waiting for the weather to warm up in Pennsylvania but I am trying to enjoy the cooler weather a little longer by bundling up under a blanket. I wouldn’t mind some temps in the 70s but looks like we are going from the mid-50s to high 70s by next week.
I hope you are all having a great week and have a great weekend!
Now, let’s introduce our hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:
Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!
Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!
Lisa from Boondock Ramblingsshares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.
Sue from Women Living Well After 50 started blogging in 2015 and writes about living an active and healthy lifestyle, fashion, book reviews and her podcast and enjoying life as a woman over 50. She invites you to join her living life in full bloom.
We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!
WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!
A little about Pam and her blog:From my earliest memories, words and how they can create meanings, emotions, ideas, and illuminate stories, have filled my head. The opportunity to explore and try those out came when I worked as a “stringer” for a local newspaper where I earned a few cents per column inch and a dollar for any accompanying photo. Writing was a joy and learning to take photos with the Polaroid camera piqued my interest in photography and how it could add to a story or help me discover a new story.
I earned little, but I enjoyed every moment. Then life took me in different directions as a wife raising my two children and ultimately becoming a grandmother of six amazing individuals.
During that journey, I spent time leading women’s ministries, teaching elementary and junior high special education students, teaming with my husband doing weekends for National Marriage Encounter, and going to graduate school. That graduate school education moved me into another season on the journey as I became a Licensed Professional Supervising Clinical Counselor and Independent Marriage and Family Therapist working first in a private practice for eight years and then on the staff of my church for an additional thirteen years.
In June 2014, I retired from all the jobs that had filled my days and once again the stirring inside to return to writing grew louder. Now I have the time to begin writing again and expand my love of photography.
Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!
And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:
I am joining this week’s Hodge Podge with From This Side of the Pond.
Here are the questions we were asked to answer this week:
What’s your favorite room in your house and why?
I guess I would say the living room is my favorite room in the house. It had tons of windows and well-lit and it’s where everyone in the family hangs out together. It has easy access to the kitchen and the bathroom, the TV, and the front and back porches. The woodwork and the well painted white ceiling also add to the atmosphere of the room. If only I was a better housekeeper and kept it cleaner. Ha. That’s something I definitely want to work on.
What’s something that will instantly annoy you?
How much time do you have? Kidding. One thing that will instantly annoy me is when I sit down, ready to read or write a blog post, after being in the kitchen washing dishes and cooking for two hours and my daughter will ask me if I can cut her up an apple.
I’m so glad to have her and I’m even glad to be available to wait on her but sometimes she gets wrapped up in what she’s doing and doesn’t recognize that any time in those two hours I was already up on my feet doing things is when she could have asked for the snack she wanted.
She’s also 10 now and can start getting these snacks on her own. I like to cut the apple up for her because I don’t want her to accidentally cut herself.
May 28th is National Hamburger Day…will you celebrate? How do you like yours? If you’re not cooking at home is there a favorite place you like to go for a burger? Did you ever work in a fast food restaurant?
That’s a lot of questions! I didn’t know it was National Hamburger Day, and I wish I had because I used the hamburger we had to make meatballs yesterday.
I am a huge hamburger fan, as long as it is made well. I don’t like any pink in mine, but I also don’t want it burned.
There is a restaurant near me that makes the best hamburgers but we don’t go there often. There was another restaurant near us that used to make amazing burgers but that changed in recent years so I haven’t tried again.
I have never worked at a fast food restaurant or any restaurant.
What are three scents you like?
Three scents I like are chocolate chip cookies while they are baking, a citrus essential oil I have, and coffee brewing (but I don’t actually drink it).
What do you miss most about being a kid?
So much. Most of all I miss that someone else was in charge and was protecting me. Now I am in charge and have to protect myself and my children. It honestly stresses me out.
I miss how carefree childhood was too. Riding scooters down the streets of the little town my friends lived in, exploring the creek, swinging on swings until we almost threw up and not caring that we almost threw up.
Having friends is something else I miss about childhood. I don’t have friends now and I did then. They were best friends too. We did a ton together and had sleepovers. Those same friends no longer speak to me. I guess life got too busy and I got too much to deal with because of my chronic illness stuff and anxiety and who knows what else. I tried to keep in contact with them but after awhile it became disappointing to be the only one trying.
Insert your own random thought here.
I just wrote a blog post about Murder She Wrote, and I spent several days researching it. Just for my blog where I only get about 100 views a day. I’m starting to wonder about my sanity. I’m sure there are better things I could do with my time but I keep doing things that help me avoid focusing on all the stressful things in my life. I suppose it is a little normal but also . . . I think I might have issues.
How would you answer any of these questions?
Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.
You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
“Well, if I was going to write about you, you’d have to tell me. I’d have to know where you live, whether you’re married or not, what you have for breakfast, what you do on your day off. That’s why people read murder stories.”
“Is that what you think?”
“Yes!”
He shook his head. “I don’t agree. The word is murder. That’s what matters.”
~ The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
Angela Lansbury was almost 60 years old when she decided she wanted to do something other than theater and movies, which had comprised the entirety of her acting career up to that point.
She told her agent she wanted to get involved in television and he began to put feelers out for television shows that might work for her.
What came back from producers was very disappointing for Angela. Scripts submitted suggested she play the maid or housekeeper in an ensemble piece.
“When I got them, I was really pissed off,” Angela said in an interview with the Archive of American Television. “Well, jiminy, I’ve been working all these years in theater and movies and I don’t have a q-rating but I certainly have a little bit of a reputation for someone who knows how to do what I do, which is act. And I sent them back and I said, ‘do you mean to tell me that I’ve been working in the theater, getting ten percent of the gross and keeping the curtains up, for 15 years in New York and you’re going to offer — is that what you call a television opportunity for me at my age?”
Only a week later she received two scripts. One was for a comedy, that turned out not to be her cup of tea, so to speak. The other was for Murder, She Wrote.
When Angela read about Jessica Fletcher, she felt Jessica’s role was something she could connect with and contribute to.
Angela portrayed Jessica for 12 years starting in 1984 and during those years she once said that her show helped keep CBS afloat during some very lean years, especially in the 1980s and early 1990s when the network’s only other “big show” was 60 Minutes.
Murder, She Wrote topped the ratings week after week, year after year. In fact, it was the top-rated drama series for nine consecutive seasons.
Today the show is streaming on various services. It can be found in reruns on regular TV/cable and there are, of course, DVD collections. Fans of the show haven’t waned but merely grown up or are newly discovering it.
But what made a show about a middle-aged mystery writer turned amateur sleuth successful for so long?
Was it the quirky reoccurring characters, the simple and fairly clean mysteries, the fact it offered middle-America a much-needed escape from the trials of life, or Angela’s portrayal of Jessica?
The answer is simple.
It was all of these things. With Angela’s portrayal leading the way.
Murder, She Wrote was (or shall we say still is) the epitome of a cozy mystery show.
Sure, there was murder, but the show still managed to keep the crime and investigation fairly light. There was no-graphic violence, little to no obscenities and no on-screen sex. That isn’t to say that the topics presented or discussed weren’t a bit dark or uncomfortable, but writers and producers approached them in a way that was digestible to audiences of all backgrounds and most ages.
Viewers could tune in each week and watch Jessica solve a crime all while interacting in a caring, yet firm, way with her neighbors, family members (how many nieces and nephews can woman have?!), and strangers. For the first few years of the show episodes happened in the fictional town of Cabot Cove, Maine.
That’s right. Cabot Cove was not a real town. I hope I didn’t ruin that for anyone, but, yes, the exterior scenes for Cabot Cove were actually filmed in Mendocino, California.
Before Murder, She Wrote, Angela, born Angela Brigid Lansbury, acted on stage and in the theater. She began her acting career after her family moved to New York from London in 1940 to escape The Blitz during World War II. Angela was 15 at the time, and by 16, she was looking for acting jobs. Her mother was British actress Moyna MacGill so she knew a little bit about acting.
“Moyna found work on Broadway, and Angela studied drama until, after two years, they decamped to Los Angeles,” states an article by Holly Brubach in The Gentlewoman Magazine. “Moyna was on tour at the time, so it was left to Angela to organise the move – packing and closing the apartment, making travel arrangements for herself and her brothers. She was 16, pretending to be 19.”
Angela, known by her family as Brigid, started acting out scenes shortly after the age of 9 after her father died from stomach cancer. She needed a way to cope from the shock of his loss. Her mother later remarried and it was with her stepfather and mother and twin brothers that she moved to New York.
In 1942, at the age of 18, she signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and in the next 20 years she was nominated for three Academy Awards — Gaslight (1944 and the her first movie!), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), and The Manchurian Candidate (1962).
Then, when others didn’t see her as a leading lady, it was on to Broadway where she started collecting Tony Awards including, four for Best Actress in a Musical for her performances in Mame (1966), Dear World (1969), Gypsy (1975), and Sweeney Todd (1979), followed by a win for Best Featured Actress in a Play for Blithe Spirit (2009). She was Tony-nominated for her roles in Deuce (2007) and A Little Night Music (2010). She won the Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 2022.
Other films she acted in (or voice acted in) included Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), Death on the Nile (1978), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Anastasia (1997), Nanny McPhee (2005) and Mary Poppins Returns (2018).
With all that success on stage and in movies, some in the industry might have considered Angela’s desire to have a role on television a step down. She, however, didn’t. Television was something new for her. She’d done everything else already.
She wasn’t sure what to expect from television, and she liked that. In the end, it was an amazing move for her career. Her portrayal of Jessica was what would shoot her to global fame.
Angela once described Jessica Fletcher as “the American Miss Marple”, which is fitting since it was an Agatha Christie movie that gave CBS executives the idea for Murder, She Wrote.
“CBS was getting beaten badly on Sunday nights,” Robert F. O’Neill, supervising producer, said on a special about Murder, She Wrote that ran after the show ended. “And in desperation, they ran an Agatha Christie movie, and I think it was Murder on the Orient Express, I’m not sure. And lo and behold it beat NBC and ABC. So they initially thought it might have been a fluke. A few weeks later, they purchased another Agatha Christie-type movie, and the same thing happened.”
Executives then began to wonder how a similar-style mystery show might do in that time slot. Harvey Shepard, the senior vice president of programming at CBS, floated the idea of the mystery show featuring a woman as the lead, which was unusual, according to show co-creator William Link, who spoke on the same special as O’Neill.
“Dick Levinson (other co-creator) and I were surprised because usually there hadn’t been any big hits with a woman protagonist carrying the series,” Link said. “Usually, the woman was bailed out by all the male associates she had. We figured if we are going to do a mystery show with a woman, it isn’t going to be like that.”
Once the script was written for the first show, creators had to find an actress that CBS would accept as Jessica Fletcher. When Jessica’s name came to them, Link and Levinson, self-described “theater nuts” were thrilled, but figured CBS executives might never have heard of her, which meant they might reject her.
Luckily, the executives loved Angela because from the start, she made it known how she thought Jessica should be portrayed — from what she wore to how she spoke to how she lived her life.
Angela protected Jessica fiercely over the next 12 years, striving to keep her as a strong, independent woman, rejecting a suggestion she get into a relationship and get married during the show’s run. Jessica was a widow from the start of the show. She was faithful to her husband Frank even after his death, always rejecting any men’s advances gently, but firmly. She wore a locket around her neck in Frank’s memory and often spoke of him.
If writers wrote something Angela knew Jessica wouldn’t say, she went to them and insisted they change that part of the dialogue.
“How much of Jessica Fletcher is Angela Lansbury?” asked one show writer Tom Sawyer (real name!) in an interview. “I would say cumulatively, a lot. Whether or not you start out writing the character to be like the actor, they tend to meld. When you start to get to know that person you tend to write to their strengths, to who they are.”
Many of those involved with the show agreed with Sawyer that much of who Jessica Fletcher became was shaped by who Angela was.
“I hope I share a lot of her traits,” Angela said in the same interview as Sawyer. “I certainly was brought up to conduct myself a certain way, so I suppose I bring that to her.”
Where is the real Cabot Cove?
Getting back to that little town Jessica lived in. Rumors have abounded for years about which Maine towns the fictional town was based on. Writer Laurie Bain Wilson believes Kennebunkport, Maine is what Cabot Cove is based on. Wilson’s father, Donald Bain, wrote 46 Murder, She Wrote novels under the name Jessica Fletcher, with his name underneath.
“Kennebunkport, about an hour-and-a-half drive from Boston, is one of the most favored coastal towns (for being Cabot Cove), and why not?” she wrote in a 2023 article on nextavenue.org. “It has all the feels of Cabot Cove. Kennebunkport’s year-round population is small, about 3,500, much like Cabot Cove’s 3,560; in the summer the number grows considerably thanks to the tourists.”
Cabot Cove isn’t simply a town, says Wilson.
“Ask any Murder, She Wrote fan — of the TV show or books — they’ll tell you that Cabot Cove is more than a location, it’s practically a character in itself,” she wrote.
But Cabot Cove was contrived, even if it felt real, with only nine episodes actually being filmed in Mendocino and interior scenes being shot on a soundstage. There were other locations filmed in the tiny town and used as stock footage throughout the series.
The outside of Jessica Fletcher’s house shown in episodes is actually The Blair House Inn in Mendocino.
According to the Blair House Inn website, residents looked forward to the filming schedule each spring. It was normal to see residents mingling with the cast and crew and filming the show there was a definite boon to the economy.
“It is estimated the series brought in over two million dollars for the local economy, and generous donations were also made to various local service groups and organizations,” the Blair House Inn site states.
It was stated by Lansbury and others that filming in Maine was too expensive, which is why actual filming was done in California. It does make me wonder, though, why the writers chose the state of Maine as Jessica’s home. I couldn’t find a definitive answer online, but I will keep searching.
I found it ironic that the man who had the Blair House built, Elish Blair, arrived in Mendocino from Maine in 1857. Interesting connection, huh?
Fans of Murder, She Wrote, still visit Mendocino to soak up the feeling of Cabot Cove, especially the inn.
“The iconic house that was Jessica’s home has an idyllic location overlooking the Pacific Ocean,” boasts the inn’s site. “It features classic Victorian details such as ornate woodwork. The house has become a popular tourist attraction over the years, and it’s easy to see why. The house is a beautiful reminder of the past, and it’s also the perfect setting for a good mystery.”
A phenomenon
Murder, She Wrote wasn’t just a show — it was a cultural phenomenon that led to books, merchandise, tourism, television movies, and much more.
To this day the topic of Murder, She Wrote still pops up on various social media accounts or — ahem — blogs.
Vanity Fair wrote an article in 2016 about an Instagram account featuring Jessica as a “style icon.” The account featured images or videos of Jessica’s various outfits, which back in the day probably influenced quite a few trends.
The account is now defunct, but at the time it was run by a Cici Harrison, who wasn’t a fan of Murder, She Wrote when her mom and sister were in the 1980s. In her 30s she began to appreciate it more and started the account to focus on Jessica’s fashion.
That fashion was something Angela herself had a lot of input on.
Jennifer Frazee was a freelance assistant wardrobe stylist on the show and told Vanity Fair she remembered Lansbury always being there when the wardrobe department planned Jessica’s outfits for the episodes.
“If you really want to think about it, she was very sophisticated in what she wore in the show,” she said. “And that also has to do with the actress; they expected to see her, even when she was Jessica Fletcher, they also saw Angela Lansbury,” she said. “She’s royalty; she’s Hollywood royalty. It was well blended.”
Fans still talk about Jessica’s fashion on places like Reddit.
Angela didn’t just have input on Jessica’s fashion, style, and personality. In the early 1990s when the show’s ratings started to slip some, Angela took over as an executive producer, moved Jessica to New York City, and helped breathe life back into the show again. The woman was a quadruple threat. She could act in movies, television, on Broadway, and produce television.
Acting and producing wasn’t all Angela did while on the show either, if some rumors are true. Even before she passed away, a rumor started that she offered guest star appearances to actors who hadn’t worked in years, making sure they wouldn’t lose either their insurance or pension payments from the actors’ guild.
An article on Newsweek states that this story was never proven, but admitted there were many out-of-work actors who were given guest spots on the shows over the years. At least one actress said Angela had writers create a role for her so she wouldn’t lose her actor’s guild insurance.
“A 2003 Los Angeles Times obituary for actress Madlyn Rhue revealed how Lansbury had helped her during an illness,” states the Newsweek article. “The article states that Lansbury reportedly had heard that Rhue was in danger of losing her Screen Actors Guild medical coverage because she was short of meeting the annual earnings requirement.
“So she created this character for her and brought her in every three or four episodes. People who had worked with Madlyn and loved her kept giving her the opportunity to work.”
The site Gold Derby also mentions Angela doing this for actors and says a former head of publicity at Universal Television said the rumors were true.
“I can confirm this happened on numerous, if not dozens, of occasions,” the person, who preferred to remain anonymous, said. “This was a genuine priority for her, to help her fellow union members either remain members in good standing or restore their membership. That’s just the way she was. It was extremely important to her.”
There were some weird things about the show…
Over the years, viewers haven’t been afraid to admit there were/are faults in the show. One “fault” (if you want to call it that) was that someone died every week as soon as Jessica stepped through the door. My husband, who watched the show as a teen, calls her The Harbinger of Death and there is even an episode with that title (Season 4, Episode 13). Of course, how could you have a show called Murder, She Wrote if you didn’t have murders? It was an occupational hazard for Jessica’s character. My husband and I often joke that maybe Jessica killed people so she’d have more material for her books.
Another odd thing about the show was how many of the deaths happened in the little town of Cabot Cove. Estimates online that I found were that 60 out of the little town’s 3,500 residents died in those 12 years. I know I certainly would have reconsidered any visits to that town if I had heard that.
Other “faults” included continuity issues, some bad episodes (like what show doesn’t have those?), some odd plotlines (like the woman who was a bigamist but begged Jessica at the end of the show not to tell her second husband), and maybe a bit too much “cheese.”
Liberty Hardy wrote on the site novelsuspects.com that the show could be “silly” at times.
“(One) delightfully silly aspect is that not only were there murders everywhere Jessica Fletcher went, but they almost always involved her family and friends. By the beginning of season four, Jessica had three nieces and a nephew-in-law accused of murder, and a nephew who was a top suspect in killings not once, but twice! (The show never took itself too seriously, though: The episode “Witness for the Defense” even poked fun of her seemingly homicidal family.)”
Most fans would agree that all of those so-called faults are all part of the charm of Murder, She Wrote.
The end of an era
The charm of the show didn’t stop CBS from canceling it in 1996, though, and that is something which truly bothered Angela, even years later.
In 1996, CBS thought they needed to make a change to the night when Murder, She Wrote aired and moved it from Sunday to Thursday, opposite NBC’s powerhouse sitcom, Friends. They realized their mistake fast and tried to move it again, but the initial move was the beginning of the end.
Makers of the show hoped that the loyal viewers would follow and for a while, they did, but then there were more moves and no one knew when to watch it. By then, as my husband said, “the product had been spoiled.”
Not only had the shine gone off the show as it plummeted in the ratings due to fan being unable to find it, but CBS was also looking for shows that would cater to younger audiences.
Finally CBS pulled the plug and it was a move that crushed the cast and fans.
Angela wasn’t ready for the end, she said in an interview with The Television Academy. She would have gracefully bowed out, rather than have been kicked out, she snapped in the interview, still clearly annoyed many years later.
“It surprised us. It shocked us,” Angela told 60 Minutes in a November 1996 feature piece. “We could have told them that it couldn’t be any other night than Sunday night because that was family night.”
The show was canceled in May and in November, during the 60 Minutes interview, Angela still couldn’t talk about it without choking up. She needed to take a sip of tea, in true British fashion, to keep the tears at bay and even then they glistened in the corners of her eyes.
The outcry to the cancellation was so intense that Angela had a letter published in TheNew York Post to thank fans and try to soothe them.
“Dear Friends,
Let me just say that I am simply overwhelmed by the warmth and sincerity of your wonderful messages and I feel tremendously comforted by your support. I think you know I have always held you, our audience, in the highest regard, and believe me, I shared your disappointment in the way things turned out.
But now I’m looking forward to new beginnings, and, down the line, Murder, She Wrote movies of the week. My love and gratitude to you all for letting me know how much you’ve enjoyed Murder, She Wrote over the past twelve years.
Angela.”
Eventually, Angela forgave CBS, or at least somewhat, and agreed to make a few TV Murder, She Wrote movies.
Personal thoughts:
As for me, I didn’t actually watch Murder, She Wrote when I was younger, except for a couple of times with my grandmother. Grandma didn’t have much choice but to watch Murder, She Wrote. For years the only channel she could get on her TV was a CBS affiliate. I think, however, she actually liked the show and would have watched it even if she’d had had more channels.
It was my husband who actually got me interested in the show and it was with him I watched my first full episode. In the last year or so I have begun to binge watch the show with our 10-year-old daughter. One afternoon my family came home from something or other, I can’t remember what, and I was tired, but I clapped my hands in excitement and said, “Oh! I am so excited! I have a Murder, She Wrote episode to finish.” My daughter was excited too and when that one was finished, she declared, “Another one!”
Anytime we’ve had a rough day she now suggests Murder, She Wrote to helps us both unwind. I won’t lie that sometimes we poke a bit of fun at the sillier moments of the show, but affectionately so
TV was a big escape for my husband when he was growing up. He came from an abusive home. For him watching shows like The Rockford Files, Columbo, Taxi, Magnum P.I., and Murder, She Wrote is nostalgic because it reminds him of some of the few good times he had in his childhood. Those shows were a chance for him to forget about the mental abuse he suffered day in and day out. They were also shows he watched with his grandparents, who provided him a type of emotional shelter from what he was experiencing at home. .
For me, watching Murder, She Wrote gives me time to focus on something other than the difficulties in life — parents growing older, children growing so fast my head is spinning, personal health issues, world events, etc. etc. I have found that the show has offered me an escape as well.
I enjoyed a particular section in the article in The Gentlewoman Magazine about Angela where she talked about how she unwound.
“. . . she needs to do things with her hands, she says – cooking, if she’s at home, or knitting, in her dressing room. “I find that very calming,” she explains. “Which might give you the idea that I’m a nervous person, which I’m not. But sometimes one’s mind goes too fast, and by doing something with my hands, I slow myself down.”
I also like to find things to do with my hands to help slow my thoughts down.
Why fans loved the show – in their own words
When Angela Lansbury passed away in 2022 at the age of 96, fans placed wreaths at the Blair House Inn.
A year later the Kelley House Museum, in the same town, offered a reception inside the inn in tribute of Angela, according to a post on their site, and asked fans why they loved Murder, She Wrote.
Here are some of the answers:
“I watched as a young girl, often as my mom did house cleaning. As an adult, after I married and began trying to start a family, I was met with some unexpected obstacles. After several years of unsuccessful IVF treatments, I began to try to make peace with a childless future. I made a list of strong women I admired who happened to not have children. Jessica Fletcher was at the top of my list. I rewatched every episode at that time. Then, a year later, I rewatched every episode again, during my pregnancy. I became pregnant thanks to another ‘childless’ woman I admired–my sister–who became my savior egg donor. XO Malory Marlatte Voith.”
“I began watching the show my senior year of high school (1985 graduate) and continued to watch through college. I loved seeing a female who was so much smarter than the men around her yet wasn’t cocky. I did a career in federal law enforcement with the US Marshals Service. Channeling my inner ‘Jessica’ helped through tough situations over the years.”
“My Nana passed away when I was 7. But before that, she and I would watch Murder, She Wrote as our before-bed show. When she passed, it was my happy show to watch and remember my Nana.”
“Five generations now have watched this wonderful show. From Grandma to my granddaughter who is 3. We love this show! Fav episode— ‘If it’s Thursday, It Must Be Beverly.’ – Debbie, Alejandoro, & Athena (3)”
When looking for posts about why fans love the show, I found an entire Subreddit just about Murder, She Wrote. On one post, fans shared why they loved the show.
“I can’t seem to articulate it really, it just is (comforting),” one poster wrote. “Perhaps because Angela Lansbury reminds me so much of my late grandmother? Or that every episode, even though there is always a murder, tends to end happily? The general 80s-90s nostalgia?”
“As others have said, the gentle tone, and Angela is just such a treat to watch,” another comment reads. “The character of Jessica herself is comforting, wise, kind, practical and reliable.”
Echoing Angela’s comments over the years that the show was one that families watched together, commenters online often mention they have memories of watching it with family.
“This brings me comfort because I grew up watching it with my parents and brother,” one person wrote on Reddit.
Closing Thoughts
I have a long way to go before I have watched all of the Murder, She Wrote episodes and that makes me happy. I look forward to many more nights of watching and getting caught up in the storyline and maybe poking a bit of fun at some of the silly or unbelievable elements.
I look forward to watching Jessica be cool under pressure. I look forward to watching her be bold (and maybe a bit stupid) when she corners the killer and solves the case.
I also look forward to my daughter seeing through Jessica Fletcher that a woman can be independent, determined, and strong but also kind, caring, and compassionate.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
The most exciting thing that happened last week is that our son graduated from a local career center (high school level). We are proud of him and are excited for him to receive his other high school diploma in a couple of weeks when we meet with our state-certified homeschool evaluator. She will sign off on his diploma through the Pennsylvania Department of Education and he will be a high school graduate!
He’s taking a few weeks off to decide on his next step and his dad and I are fine with that.
He and Little Miss both have a few things to write for me this upcoming week and then we will be done with school for this year. Little Miss and I can start counting anything we do, such as field trips, books read, etc. after July 1 toward our school year next year so this year I am not waiting for a start date in August for our school year. We’re just starting whenever in July and taking days off whenever we want. I’m looking forward to it, but I am having a hard time adjusting to not planning for The Boy’s lessons next year.
It has been very cold in our neck of the woods for the entire month of May. I enjoy snuggling up under my blanket, so I don’t hate it when I am in the house, but it has not been super fun going out in it. Wind, rain, more wind, more rain. Bleh. But it looks like June will be when things warm up and I’ll probably be a medical mess in July and August with the heat like I usually am.
Today we visited a small bookstore about 20 minutes from us. I didn’t even know it existed before a couple of weeks ago. They held a book sale on their porch. I’ll chat about it more in a future post or next week.
We will be holding another one Saturday, June 24 at 1 p.m. I’m tentatively looking at one for June 14, hosted by me, but I haven’t finalized that yet with anyone. Keep an eye on this space for that announcement if it does happen.
The crafternoons are events where we gather on Zoom and craft at our respective homes and chat while we work on various projects. There is one woman who creates with beads, another who colors, I sometimes draw or color, and Erin has been embroidering lately. We are calling them drop-in crafternoons because you can drop in and out during the time we are on. No need to stay the whole time if you can’t. Come late if you want or leave early. We are usually on about two hours, three if we all get chatty and don’t have something else to run off to.
If you want to join in, email Erin at crackcrumblife@gmail.com and she will add you to the mailing list.
I finished Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping on A Deadman by Jesse Q. Sutanto last week and enjoyed it but not as much as the first book. This one seemed a bit more rushed and contrived and pretty obvious when it came to finding out who the perpetrator was. It was also darker in subject matter than the first. Vera’s sense of humor and sweetness made up for all of that, though, and it was, overall, a good escape. Don’t avoid it because of anything I said, because you may have a totally different opinion of it.
I DNF’d one book when the author said the woman enjoyed the male main character’s “male spicy scent”. I will have to go sniff my husband, but I’ve never noticed he smelled spicy and if he did I might tell him he spilled pepper on himself and suggest a shower.
Thea romance was also overtaking the mystery, which was also falling apart. Life is too short to read books we don’t enjoy I say.
I am still reading All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Herriot but not enjoying it as much as I did his other books. The stories are good but I keep wondering what’s actually true and what isn’t now that I know how actually semi-autobiographical the books are. I still very much am enjoying the stories, but I’ll be making my way slowly through the book.
I started Mansfield Park by Jane Austen which I had actually started on Audible last year. It is interesting so far. I know Austen fans think everyone should start with the big ones like Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility, but I know those stories pretty well from watching the movies and don’t know the story of Mansfield Park.
I’m also reading The Wishing Well by Mildred Wirt, which is a book from the 1930s by the original writer of the Nancy Drew books.
Last week I watched Murder, She Wrote, Ludwig, Everybody Loves Raymond (good grief..the laugh tracks!), The Dick VanDyke Show, and Just A Few Acres Farms (on YouTube). I also watched The Intouchables again with my son and his friend and they ended up loving it. I didn’t think they would.
I made a bit more progress on book four of the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series. I don’t know why but this one is really a struggle for me. I am really in my head too much on this one. I am comparing my books to other books and overthinking pretty much everything — from the story idea to the structure to the actual writing.
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
The 20 Books of Summer Challenge is back this year with new hosts. This will be my first year participating and I can tell you I will most likely not read 20 books this summer. Much less than that.
So, I have a list of 15 books I plan to choose from, knowing full well I will get distracted a time or two or to read all of them. Count on me not reading all of them or even half. Ha.
For the challenge you can actually choose 10, 15, or 20 books.
The #20BooksofSummer2025 challenge runs from Sunday, June 1st to Sunday, August 31st
The first rule of 20 Books is that there are no real rules, other than signing up for 10, 15 or 20 books and trying to read from your TBR.
Pick your list in advance, or nominate a bookcase to read from, or pick at whim from your TBR.
If you do pick a list, you can change it at any time – swap books in/out.
Don’t get panicked at not reaching your target.
Just enjoy a summer of great reading and make a bit of space on your shelves!
They will alo have monthly summary posts where you can add progress reports and recommendations. The final one at the at the beginning of September will stay open for a while to catch all the last reviews.
If you’re planning to join in please do add your blog / planning post link to the Mr Linky on the hosts blogs, and you can download the logos and bingo card now. You can also use the hashtag #20BooksofSummer2025 on your socials.
And now my list of 15 books I will be choosing from this summer. These books are a mix of mysteries, romances, thoughtful, fluffy, and all in between. And of course I’ll probably read more Nancy Drew than I have listed here. They’re fast reads.
Summer of Yes by Courtney Walsh
Between Sound and Sea by Amanda Cox
The Clue in the Diary by Carolyn Keene
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
The Inimitable Jeeves by PG Woodhouse
Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
Spill the Jackpot by Erle Stanley Gardner
‘Tis Herself by Maureen O’Hara
Death In A Budapest Butterfly by Julia Buckley
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonassen
But First Murder by Bee Littlefield
The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie
Britt-Marie was Here by Fredrik Backman
A Midnight Dance by Joanna Davidson
The Unlikely Yarn of The Dragon Lady by Sharon J. Mondragon
And bonus…my “take my time” read: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
I am a mood reader so I will not be reading this list in order and if my mood dictates I have to choose off the list, I certainly will. Reading is a leisure activity for me, and applying too much structure takes the joy out of it for me, but making lists is also fun for me so…this is why I make a list.
Do you have a list of books you like to choose from for each season or do you just grab whatever you feel like reading next?
Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog, and providing a link so readers can learn more about it.
Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.
First, let’s introduce our hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:
Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!
Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!
Lisa from Boondock Ramblingsshares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.
Sue from Women Living Well After 50 started blogging in 2015 and writes about living an active and healthy lifestyle, fashion, book reviews and her podcast and enjoying life as a woman over 50. She invites you to join her living life in full bloom.
We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!
WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!
Title: Peg and Rose Solve A Murder (Senior Sleuths Mysteries)
Author: Laurien Berenson
Date published: August 2022
Pages: 288
Source: Libby/ebook (also available in paperback/hardback wherever books are sold and maybe at your library)
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Description: Rose Donovan looks for the good in everyone. With her sister-in-law, Peg, that sometimes requires a lot of searching. Even a sixty-something former nun like Rose has her limits, and gruff Peg Turnbull sure knows how to push them. But after forty years of bickering, they’re attempting to start over, partnering up to join the local bridge club.
Peg and Rose barely have a chance to celebrate their first win before one of the club’s most accomplished players is killed in his home. As the newest members, the sisters-in-law come under scrutiny and decide to start some digging of their own. Bridge is typically seen as a wholesome pastime, yet this group of senior citizens harbors a wealth of vices, including gambling, cheating, and adultery . . .
By comparison, Peg and Rose’s fractious relationship is starting to feel almost functional. But as their suspect list narrows, they’re unaware that their logic has a dangerous flaw. And they’ll have to hope that their teamwork holds steady when they’re confronted by a killer who’s through with playing games . .
What I liked:
I loved the relationship between Peg and Rose. We know right from the beginning there must be a reason the two don’t get along but is it just personality differences or something more? The layers of that onion are pulled away as we continue the book and as Peg and Rose find themselves tossed into the middle of a murder mystery.
I enjoyed learning about the two women and how different each of their personalities were and why. Peg is very sassy, outspoken and bold while Rose is more demure, soft spoken, and a bit innocent or naïve depending on the situation.
I felt that we learned a bit more about Peg than Rose in this book but that’s totally okay. There will probably be more of a focus on Rose in future books and there was a fair amount in this book as well.
I also really liked ….
That this book was clean. I know there is a lot of debate on what clean means but for me it means there was no graphic sex and no obscenities, or very minor ones. There were a few innuendos but they were fairly tame or they weren’t and I am just too big of a prude to have understood them.
Of note: It did take until the end of Chapter 11 to get to the mystery of this book, but since it was the first in the series I cut it some slack. Usually I hope for a mystery much earlier. Once this mystery occurred, though, the sleuthing took off full force and was fun to watch.
There were also some slow parts, for me anyhow, in the beginning involving Peg’s dog show judging.
I enjoyed learning about how much Peg loves poodles and judging dog shows but I really didn’t need the entire chapter about her showing her one dog. I didn’t need it, or feel the book needed it, but it was still enjoyable to see Peg at work.
Chapter 2 was literally one of the longest chapters I ever read in a book but the rest were much much shorter.
Content warnings:
There is discussion of loss in regards to a spouse and early pregnancy and there is some focus on grief from those losses. There is also mention of adultery.
I have been sharing my takes on the episodes from The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries show from the late 70s off and on for the last few months.
The show was, of course, based on the separate series of books from the 1930s and switched off between featuring The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew each week for most of the first season. Eventually the “teen” sleuths would combine their efforts in joint episodes.
Up this week is a look at the episode called The Flickering Torch Mystery. I have absolutely no idea where the title for this one comes from by the way. There is no flickering torch.
But whatever…let us not focus on semantics.
This episode is certainly full of some weirdness, but not as weird as our next Hardy Boys — The Disappearing Floor, which actually came before this episode. Somehow I mixed up the order, so I am writing about this one first.
Now, when I say weirdness when talking about this show, I don’t mean to be slamming it at all. It’s just, well, a little weird sometimes. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good show or doesn’t have some good episodes/storylines.
This episode does actually feature a fairly engaging storyline and if that doesn’t grab you then maybe looking at former teen heartthrob Rick Nelson all grown up will.
We enter this installment with Rick Nelson (Tony Eagle) on stage “singing”. My husband walked in at that moment and said that the musicians and Nelson were not really playing at first. Later, he says Nelson was, but the other guys still weren’t. Hey, that’s TV for ‘ya. No reason to really do what you can fake doing. Also, if you really want a sad story, look up how Rick Nelson died. It was not a simple plane crash, like I always thought. What a horrible situation for him and the others who died.
Fenton Hardy is off stage, clapping for Rick’s character, and we wonder why Fenton is there but we soon find out that he is helping security for Tony’s next performance, which will be where the Hardys live – The Tri-City area. Wherever that is.
Fenton says he will be ready with the help of his sons, even though they are “just your normal, average teenage boys.”
We flip right to Joe and Frank Hardy in a small airplane, doing flips. Or at least Frank is. When another plane runs into severe fog and starts to struggle because of an instrument failure, the boys are there to rescue the guy and help him land safely.
That’s when they realize the man, a Mr. Lou Haskel, is exactly who they are looking for because they are investigating a case of a missing man — Richard Johnston — for their dad, who is a private investigator in case you forgot.
The missing man, a sound engineer, left for work one morning and never came home. He was supposed to show up to an appointment with Mr. Haskel, but he never showed. The boys want to know if Mr. Haskel has seen him. He says he hasn’t but gives them a warning that his wife, who hired their dad, is known to “overreact” at times.
Thank you, Mr. Misogyny, the boys will keep that in mind.
Mr. Misogyny works for All Points Airway and the boys want to know why a sound engineer would be working for him. Mr. M says it is because he developed the sound system for the jet in front of them.
Ooh. Ah. Fascinating.
The boys want to see the inside, but Sexist Man says, “Nope..not right now. Have to get on with my day.”
They take that answer pretty easily and head off home to mull over what they’ve learned so far, which is very little.
Their Dad returns home with Tony in tow and they are starstruck because they have all his albums. Breaking all kinds of confidentiality they tell their dad what they’ve found out about Richard Johnston in front of Tony and his manager.
Tony’s shocked. “Richard’s missing? He’s the best sound engineer in the country. He’s supposed to be doing our sound at the stadium. What happened to him?”
The local fire chief, always a source of absolutely the worst take on things offers up this gem: “He probably turned Mom’s photo to the wall and took a plane to a place he’d never been before….” Implying that he simply walked out because he didn’t want to deal with his family.
Everyone promptly ignores that idiot and heads out to the venue to discuss security. Tony says he wants to stay back and “discuss some things” with the boys. Huh…whatever that means. At that moment, though, Fenton’s secretary, Callie, is trying to reach the boys on a CB radio.
She’s found a car over an embankment and wants them to come quick. Tony overhears it and says he’ll join them for more screen time and a bigger check — I mean because he wants to find out what happened to Richard.
They find the car over the embankment and if anyone was in it, they’re dead, Joe declares. For some reason the boys don’t call the cops at this point. Joe just ties a rope to a tree and lowers himself down to the scene. Luckily, Richard isn’t in the car, and they won’t have to tell his wife he’s dead. At least not yet.
Tony suggests they go back to the plane that Haskel didn’t want them to go in and start investigating there to see if there are any clues to where Richard went.
Inside the plane they find Richard’s equipment but only after they are chased by an angry pair of Doberman Pinchers.
Dipsy-Do police chief catches them snooping, by the way. Seems he shows up at just the right, or wrong, times. He scolds them a bit and they decide not to share anything about what they’ve found, probably because they know he will bungle the case.
Fingerprints that Joe pulled from a Tony Eagle tape inside the equipment box prove to the boys that Richard was in the plane, even though Haskel said he wasn’t.
Dun-dun-dun.
Later we are at the stadium, getting ready for the concert with Fenton talking to his staff about security and the boys heading to see Tony, who is in his dressing room arguing with his manager, Carl, about how he hasn’t been shown his finances lately. Tony says he doesn’t know how much money he has. The manager tells him not to worry about it, his finances are fine, so we clearly know something is up there.
Tony starts sleuthing when he asks his manager if he’s seen Richard Johnston. The manager says he hasn’t in a couple of weeks, but Richard said he’d be there that night for the concert.
“Come on, don’t worry…I’m going to go do something totally not suspicious now,” good ole’ Carl says as he leaves the room.
Okay, he doesn’t really say that, but that’s what it sounds like if you listen between the lines.
Meanwhile, Richard’s wife found a piece of paper in the floor of his car after the car was taken to the junkyard. It’s ripped up but the boys can see enough that they know there was something dangerous Richard was trying to warn someone about. The letter is a carbon copy so the boys ask if they can go to Richard’s office and find the original so they can learn what Richard wanted to warn everyone about.
When they get there they can’t find the letter, but they overhear someone talking outside the office and discover that Richard wanted to warn someone that something has been rigged to the sound system to —
Well, I think I’ll leave it right there because you might want to watch the episode yourself and learn what someone was supposed to be warned about.
Ah, who are we kidding? You probably won’t want to watch it or already have so if you don’t want spoilers, don’t read past these dots. . . .
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.
.
.
.
And
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Okay, so while Frank and Joe are snooping for the letter that will tell them what Richard was trying to warn someone about, they overhear someone on the phone saying that the Hardy boys won’t find out that once the sound machine hits a certain frequency Tony will be killed.
Then the person sets the office on fire to cover up the evidence, not knowing that the boys are inside. Eventually the boys are able to break out, just as the fire company shows up (rather quickly I might add, without it being clear who called them), and rush out to try to warn Tony.
The way the boys try to call the police station with their CB totally bewilders me, especially since it works. Can you really call a landline with a CB radio? I should Google this, but I’m ot going to….
What bewilders me more is how they don’t say to the officer, who answers, “Tell my dad or the chief Tony is going to be killed!” Instead, they ask to talk to the chief and the officer puts the phone down to go to look for the chief.
This wastes a ton of time, so Joe tries to call the operator again to patch it through to the police station. Sadly, this is before there were multiple phone lines so the operator can’t get through.
Joe and Frank drive as fast as they can to the stadium, race in and onto the stage and demand that the concert be stopped before Tony is killed. They are certain there is a bomb inside the sound system.
There isn’t, however, and now the chief and everyone who was evacuated from the building and missed out on the concert are extremely angry. The boys look like the boy who cried wolf.
Carl, Tony’s manager, is incredulous. How dare these teenagers ruin the concert and say something was going to happen when it wasn’t! There’s no death threats against Tony, he says and then reminds them that Tony is on his way to London the next day.
The boys are gently scolded by their father for putting themselves in danger and not having all the facts, which makes Frank even more determined to figure out what the letter actually said. The evidence is gone, but surely if he jots some letters down on a blank piece of paper next to the piece of the letter, he will completely figure out what is going on. Somehow, he decides the name that is cut off is actually Haskel.
Richard was trying to warn Haskel that there is a bomb wired into the sound system of the plane that is flying Tony to London Joe summarizes, from very little information provided by Frank.
When the scene shifts to Carl and Haskel bidding Tony farewell and telling him to enjoy his trip to London, but declining to go with him, the viewer can see guilt written all over them.
The boys make it to the airport just as Tony’s private jet is starting down the runway.
Once again, they beg the police chief to listen to them, but they’ve already been wrong once, so they’re told to go cause trouble somewhere else.
The boys won’t be silenced, though, so they take off with their van to follow the jet and force it to stop before they take off. Richard is found inside the airplane, where the extra gas would be stored and the plot by Haskel and Carl unravels.
Carl was taking Tony’s money and investing it in the airplanes owned by Heskel and also charging Tony extra every time he chartered the plane. Their plan was to kill Tony before he found out what they had been doing, especially since Tony kept asking to see his financial records. Richard found out about the plot when he checked out the system for the jet star (the name of the charter plane Tony used) and discovered that a high frequency feature had been added. He knew that was dangerous, so he tried to warn Haskel. Haskel, though, knew since he’d planned the plane to explode with Tony inside so he kidnapped Richard and stowed him in the bottom of the plane.
By the time he was found, it had been almost a week and as far as I know he was in there without food or water. Somehow, though, he was standing and chatting with everyone else like he was totally fine, instead of being in a hospital to be treated.
I am going to say that the story in this episode is not related to the book with the same title since this is the description of the book: Two unexplainable plane crashes near an airport on the East Coast plunge Frank and Joe Hardy into a bizarre case. From the moment Frank and Joe find a radioactive engine in an airplane junkyard, unexpected dangers strike like lightning. Despite the repeated attempts on their lives, the teenage detectives pursue their investigation, discovering two vital clues and others that provide the solution to one of the most baffling mysteries the boys and Mr. Hardy have ever encountered.
