This week I decided to list villains from books I’ve read and some from books I haven’t yet read (and might never read. Ha!)
Professor Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I have read one book featuring Professor Moriarty, the nemesis of Sherlock Holmes, but not the short story yet. I have also seen him portrayed in at least two TV adaptations of Sherlock Holmes
2. Captain Hook from Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Of course Captain Hook from J.M Barrie’s Peter Pan has to be on this list. I have read some of Peter Pan and watched, of course, the adaptations, specifically the Disney one and Hook. Dustin Hoffman pulled off a brilliant performance as Hook in that one
Editorial use only
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Snap/Shutterstock (390884jm)
FILM STILLS OF ‘HOOK’ WITH 1991, ACTION, AGAINST-ALL-ODDS (SWASHBUCKLER, FANTASY, DUSTIN HOFFMAN, STEVEN SPIELBERG IN 1991
VARIOUS
3. Sauron from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Hello…what is more evil than a wizard who wants to rule the world? A devil who wants to rule it, but you know what I mean.
4. Count Dracula from Dracula by Bram Stoker
We’ve had way too many kids’ movies that have tried to turn Dracula into a funny, relatable good guy. I’ve never read the book, but from what I understand about it — he was not a good guy. Not at all.
5. Voldemort from The Harry Potter series
Another evil wizard who wants to take over the world, but most of all destroy poor Harry Potter. I have not read the books but I did read part of the first on my own and with my kids and watched the movies with them as well.
6.Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
I have never read this book and most likely won’t but I did watch the movie with my husband.
7. Eleanor Shaw from The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon
I have not read the book but I watched the 1962 movie with Angela Lansbury as Eleanor Shaw and … shudder…she was super creepy. I can’t get into too much about why she is so evil so I don’t ruin the book or movie for you. Just know she’s scum.
8. The White Witch (Jadis) from The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Creepy to a fault, Jadis likes to tempt little boys with Turkish delight to drag all the secrets out so she can find and kill his siblings and keep her chilly hold on all of Narnia. She is, of course, a symbol of Satan, or at least one of his minions. I have read the books she is in (The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe) and have seen one movie with her in it.
9. M. Hercule Flambeau from The Father Brown Mysteries by G.K. Chesterton
This conniving burglar is always trying to get by Father Brown who is always hot on his tale. I’ve read one short story with him and have seen him in the modern version of the show. He’s quite handsome in that show too but aren’t all the best villains a bit handsome?
10. Satan from Paradise Lost by John Milton (and …hello….the BIBLE)
I have not read Paradise Lost but I have read the Bible and if you want to get technical about it, Satan is the basis for all the villains we have listed here.
“Whoa slow down the Orient Express, Sherlock. You think you’re going to investigate a possible murder?” It’s one thing for me to bat around that idea in my own private brain or to make a few innocent lists in a new notebook. For my very normal and sensible little sister to make such a suggestion — out loud — is just bizarre.”
After years of slinging lattes, Betti Bryant is taking ownership of her life. She doesn’t need new friends or book club invitations to distract her from finding her way forward. And the unresolved situation with a guy she kissed a few weeks ago might as well stay unresolved.
But there’s one distraction she is not prepared for: finding a murder victim on her way to work one frigid December morning.
Suspicion falls on Betti’s roommate, Callista, who happens to be holding a baseball bat over the victim’s body when the police drive up. Almost totally sure Callista is innocent, Betti buys a new notebook, digs out her scrapbooking supplies, and makes the cutest murder board ever.
Now, on top of holding down a job (or two) and figuring out her entire future, she’s committed to finding the real killer before any more lives are ruined—including her own.
My thoughts:
I was excited to get back into Betti’s world, after reading book one in this series, and see what Betti and her friends have been up to. I won’t share too much of what happened at the end of the last book, Clueless in the Coffee Station, in case you haven’t read it yet, but let’s just say Betti was trying some new things out at the end of the last book. The description above mentions that, of course.
In this book she’s in the middle of those changes (though still working part time at the coffee shop) when she stumbles onto a dead body outside her roommate’s new studio.
Of course, she needs to find out who killed him because she is sure the police will suspect her roommate.
On top of the mystery, in which her sister, Elsea, joins her in investigating this time around, there is a possible romance between her and a co-worker, Nico, and a new partnership with a local reporter.
Betti is a very quirky character and cracks me up. I don’t know if I would make some of the decisions she makes when it comes to not going to the police, but if she rushed right to the police there wouldn’t be a story, right?
Betti is introverted and indecisive like me and I think that is why I am drawn to her. She is also very funny, which I am not, but like to think I am.
I enjoyed the addition of her sister to this book. She was in the last book but wasn’t as heavily involved in the investigation as she was in this one.
Bee has left us with some questions at the end of this book which I hope means more stories with Betti and her family and friends.
I highlight a lot in my Kindle with Bee’s books because I love her use of words.
“The younger man comes into the café, leaving the argument behind with the snow he wipes onto the welcome mat.”
Isn’t that a cool line?
Or how about:
“Then I scream. Not one of those piercing shrieks from horror movies or playgrounds, but a goofy, uncontrolled yelp. The boy of a man, as iced over as the trees, is splayed out near an empty flower box, under the same window through which I glimpsed Callista dancing last night.”
Or:
“I found a dead man on my way to work this morning. I say it in my mind, over and over, but I can’t say it out loud. Not here, not with tea steeping and Christmas lights blinking and Chopin on the radio. When customers ask me how I’m doing I say, “Great, thanks!”
And:
“I’m going to go home and have a hard conversation with my roommate Then I’ll take a hot shower and fill my new notebook with thoughts on everything except the poor man who definitely accidentally froze to death last night.”
And one more:
“Whoa slow down the Orient Express, Sherlock. You think you’re going to investigate a possible murder?” It’s one thing for me to bat around that idea in my own private brain or to make a few innocent lists in a new notebook. For my very normal and sensible little sister to make such a suggestion — out loud — is just bizarre.”
Anyhow, I clearly enjoy Bee’s writing style. It’s first person, present tense, which I usually do not enjoy in books, but when Bee writes it, I enjoy it. I also enjoy Bee’s characters and how well-developed and 3-D they are. They are believable, raw and real. Bee’s books are also a good, light read, with a smidgen of heavy, but not enough to make her books dark mystery or thriller. Her books are definitely cozy mysteries with a good balance of cozy and mystery.
Hopefully, all my rambling will convince you to give the book a try.
For the past several months, I have been writing about or recapping episodes from the 1977-1979 TV Show The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. For the first season, the episodes would flip-flop back and forth between featuring The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, and eventually the two would join forces before they began to phase Nancy out all together.
This time around, I’m writing about the episode entitled The Secret of the Jade Kwan Yin which features The Hardy Boys.
This one will take the boys into a crime underworld stemming from smuggling originating in Hong Kong. The episode starts with Fenton Hardy watching a news broadcast talking about items being smuggled into “ports all over the world” from the small Asian country.
I don’t know if I remember the Hard Boys hometown being on the ocean before this episode, but maybe it was, because they find themselves scuba diving in the ocean when a package drops under the water in front of them. They’re confused but haul it out. They don’t know that two “Asian” men (I think the one man may actually be Hispanic but they are supposed to be of Chinese decent) are watching from the shore in scuba gear. They are upset that the two boys have picked up the package.
“If I had known anyone was going to be here, I wouldn’t have chosen this cove,” the one man says.
This man, by the way, is Richard Lee-Syeung who I recognize as the con-man trinket seller on M.A.S.H.
According to IMdb, Lee -Syeung, “has been seen and heard on numerous commercials and voice-overs. His roles include some of the most popular characters on TV shows such as M*A*S*H, Happy Days, What’s Happening, Hardy Boys, The Incredible Hulk and played an Asian version of Ed McMahon on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.”
And, no, he is not Chinese. He’s an American with Chinese and Mexican heritage. There is your bit of trivia and now back to the show.
The other man tells Lee-Syeung that they will get the package back. No big deal. It’s just two teenage kids.
Well, these two teenagers have taken the package home with Frank’s girlfriend (and Fenton’s secretary) Callie.
The boys open the package and find what looks like an ancient statue inside an adorned green box. They find some Chinese writing on the bottom and Callie says she’s seen a statue like in Chinatown.
So, the three go to Chinatown to find the shop. They find the shop and a couple of statues that look just like the one they found. The Chinese-American shop worker says that the statues in her shop are $14 but there is an original statue that his priceless because of what it means to her people.
It is a depiction of Kwan Yin who was a Chinese Buddhist deity, a goddess of mercy, she says.
In the old days she was thought to be the guardian of fishermen and there was a little Kwan Yin temple in every fishing village.
Now the boys are worried. Could they have found the real statue after it was smuggled out of Hong Kong?
They show the young woman the inscription on the bottom of the statue, which they had gotten a rub of earlier, and she says the inscription is a Chinese poem that reads: “A branch without leaves, a raven perched on it, this autumn eve.”
She suggests they go see her uncle across the street. He’s at the Kung Fu studio, where he teaches.
She walks them over and tells them what Kung Fu is actually called, which I thought was very interesting. I won’t write what she said here because I don’t know the spelling and don’t want to share any misinformation.
After watching a Kung Fu match and finding out that the uncle is an expert in it, the boys are a little nervous when he says he wants to talk to them alone over tea.
(I will say one annoying thing about this episode is every time they are in a Chinese house or shop there is Chinese-styled music playing in the background and it almost drowns out the dialogue.)
The uncle says he paid for the Kwan Yin statue to be sent to his shop, but it was stolen by a Chinese-American criminal who demanded a ransom for the statue.
The uncle, Mr. Chen, asks the boys to bring the statue back to him so he can see if it is the same one and if it is then he can tell the police the statue has come back to the rightful owner. The statue will be shown at the parade the following night.
Unfortunately, when the boys get home, they find out the statue has been stolen. Of course, we know it is the two men who were supposed to retrieve it from the boat in the first place. We watch them do it. The boys catch the men in the act and then have to chase them on their motorcycles.
When they lose the men, they have to tell both their dad and Mr. Chen that the statue was stolen from them. Oh, and the police because, as usual, calling the police is an afterthought for the Hardy Boys
The police chief is not happy at all because he was working with the FBI to get the statue back to its rightful owner.
“If you had called us when you had fished it out, then Chin Lee would have had his precious kwan yin and I’d have no problem,” the chief snaps. He tells the boys he called them in to tell them he wants them to stay out of it.
“This is our job, not yours!”
The boys say they understand and hang their heads like scolded puppies. They’re not going to stay out of it. We all know that.
They go back to the shop to talk to the girl at the shop — Lily. They want to apologize to her. She tells them a legend about the statue when they arrive. She says the statue is over 200 years old and was put in a temple in a fishing village after a tidal wave destroyed the village but everyone survived. The people credited Kwan Yin for saving them and had the statue installed in the temple.
She says her uncle promised people in the community to have the statue brought there to bring back prosperity. If it doesn’t show up her uncle will look like a fool.
Soon we learn that one of Uncle Chin’s students from the Kung Fu studio is actually behind the theft and has left a boat at a marina with his fingerprints on it that will prove he is the one who stole the statue in the first place.
He wants the men who stole the statue from the boys to destroy the boat. They set a bomb on the boat.
Of course, you know what will happen later — that’s right, when the boys find the boat through various ways and while they are exploring it, it explodes, which leaves Callie shocked and screaming because she thinks they’ve been killed in the explosion.
They haven’t been killed, obviously, and we switch back to the men who set the bomb. They are calling Mr. Chen and telling him that they want $100,000 for the statue now. Mr. Chen is upset and says he can’t pay that, and asks who is on the phone. The student says, “You should have memorized my voice more, old man.”
Meanwhile, Joe has been able to pull fingerprints off some items on the boat and somehow the tape he used to lift the fingerprint survived despite all that swimming they had to do in the water to get back to the pier.
Their aunt bursts in as they start to try to study the fingerprint and tells them that eight hours of sleep is important. I had to laugh a little when Joe tells her that “actually recent research shows that not everyone needs eight —”
She interrupts him and tells him to go to bed. I didn’t realize that research about sleep was out back then too.
The boys go to Mr. Chen’s store to talk to him, but he tells them he has given up and is going to pay the ransom to get his statue back. He leaves and the boys stay back to lament with Lily that her uncle is doing the wrong thing.
The boys then try to find Mr. Chen at his Kung Fu studio to try to talk him out of it, but when they get there, he’s already left to get the money to pay for the statue.
They then try to lift fingerprints from the sparring sticks to see if any of the men there could be involved with the theft of the statue. Once they confirm the fingerprints match, they are attacked by two men. They are able to escape into the street where the parade is going on. They run to find Mr. Chen and stop him from paying the ransom and hide on the edge of the alley while the student reveals himself to Mr. Chen and says he stole the statue. Mr. Chen is sad but says they can keep the money, he just wants the statue. The boys jump in and tackle the men and take the statue and tell Mr. Chen to run.
He does and then everyone is running as the men try to catch up to the boys to get the statue. What follows is a game of keep away while the boys toss it back and forth to each other across the street as the men get closer to one or the other.
Then — PLOT TWIST!!! — during a pretty cool slow motion scene, Joe’s foot catches on the curb and he trips and falls, shattering the statue into a million pieces. What the boys see, though, isn’t ancient glass, but a sidewalk full of tiny, gems of all colors. About this time Mr. Chen and the other men who betrayed him catch up to them.
“This wasn’t the real Kwan Yin, it was a fake to transport jewels,” Frank cries.
“Yes,” Mr. Chen confirms, and then tells them he was the one who ordered the statue with the jewels in it, but his men went rogue and tried to steal it for themselves.
Fenton Hardy and some undercover members of the FBI, as well as the police, show up next and arrest Mr. Chen and his men. The real statue is in Hong Kong, according to Fenton. This was just a way to smuggle in jewels. The chief is now happy because they were able to break up a smuggling ring that has been operation for five years. He says the Hong Kong police will be thrilled with what they’ve done.
Lily says she had no idea what her uncle was doing (ha, yeah right!) and the police say they believe her because Interpol had been watching her uncle for “quite some time.” I guess we are supposed to gather from that the authorities knew she wasn’t involved? I have no idea but the boys say they were help her stay out of trouble however they can.
There is some cheesy joke at the end of the show about Chinese breakfast cereal and everyone laughs like they always do in the last scene of an episode.
This was an educational and interesting episode with a lot of tidbits dropped in about Chinese culture. Unlike some shows made around the same era (1979) the depictions of the Chinese and Chinese-Americans was fairly espectful. There were some stereotypes presented but it didn’t go over the top to me.
This one had a lot of suspense and the reveal of Mr. Chen being the guilty in the end was a good surprise.
The next episode I will be watching will be a Nancy Drew centered one called The Mystery of the Solid Gold Kicker. It will feature a surprise guest star who became a big star in the 1990s and 2000s. Most of my readers will definitely know the actor when I talk about this episode next time around.
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.Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.
Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.
It is officially fall here in Pennsylvania! Whoo-hoo! The leaves are changing, the days and nights are cooler, and our school days have started. Little Miss is the only one homeschooling this year so that is an adjustment for me. I’m surviving but miss picking out curriculum for my son…who mainly ignored it for two years anyhow while he was in technical school. As I’m finishing this post it is raining outside and it is so cozy. I love autumn!
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 Gail: Is This Mutton? Is all about fashion and fun for the over 50s.
We are vital, energetic and fashionable, and blessed with wisdom and experience. We spend the most money of all the demographics on beauty and fashion.
We certainly don’t need click bait articles and newspapers telling us what the over 50s should and should not wear! And we don’t want to wear elasticated skirts, except on Christmas Day.
What we really hate is being represented by pictures of people in their 80s with walking sticks, or described as “grandmothers”, “ageing gracefully” or “silver surfers.” Would these epithets be applied to men over 50 by the media? No.
The title, “Is this Mutton?” refers to a saying in the UK, “mutton dressed as lamb,” usually applied to older women in a derogatory sense. Consequently, women over the age of 40 are made to worry about looking like mutton.
The blog was created by Gail, a woman in London whose background includes journalism and marketing director.
Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!
And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:
In the beginning I decided I would read 15 and then I decided on my own that I’d just read 10. I knew I had a lot going on this summer with health and stuff (not like I actually had a life and traveled. Har. Har.) and was also trying to finish the fourth book in my mystery series (which, sadly, is not finished) so I figured I might not even read that many.
In the end, though, I did manage to read 15 books.
First, my original list of planned 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 Politano
The Unlikely Yarn of The Dragon Lady by Sharon J. Mondragon
Now my final list of books read this summer:
A Midnight Dance by Joanna Davidson Politano
The Unlikely Yarn of The Dragon Lady by Sharon J. Mondragon
But First Murder by Bee Littlefield
The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie
The Inimitable Jeeves by PG Woodhouse
Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
Spill the Jackpot by Erle Stanley Gardner
The Clue in the Diary by Carolyn Keene
All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Herriot
The Wishing Well by Mildred Wirt
Killer in the Kitchen (A Murder, She Wrote book) by Donald Bain
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
Dave Barry is Not Taking This Sitting Down by Dave Barry
Carry On, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
The Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene
Here are a few follow up questions suggested by Emma:
Did you manage to finish all 10/15/20 books? If not, what kept you from completing the challenge? I finished 15 books when I actually thought I’d only get 10 done!
Of all the books you read this summer, which one(s) was/were your favorite and why? The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Inimitable Jeeves were my favorites. The Scarlet Pimpernel kept me turning the pages with its adventure and The Inimitable Jeeves was hilarous and fun.
Did you DNF any? Why? I did not finish the Courtney Walsh books. I just couldn’t get into them.
Which book surprised you the most, either by being better or worse than you expected? I expected Spill the Jackpot to be so much better than it was. I read another book in the series and really enjoyed it but this one was just not good at all.
Did you notice any patterns in the genres you chose or enjoyed this summer? As usual I read more mysteries than anything else.
Which one had the best cover? Some of my books had different covers than what I showed above. If the photo I used for The Scarlet Pimpernel on my graphic had been the cover I had had on my book, I would say that one, but, alas, I did not have that cover. So for me I think A Midnight Dance had the best cover but the Dave Barry book had the funniest.
Which one was the longest? And the shortest? All Things Wise and Wonderful was the longest and Prince Caspian was the shortest (I think)..
Did you read them mostly in print? ebook? audio? I mostly read my books via ebooks.
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
Margaret, Rose, Jane, and Fran had a good thing meet every week in the quiet of their peaceful chapel and knit prayer shawls. No muss, just ministry. That is, until their pastor boots them out of the church in his last-ditch effort to revive the dwindling congregation.
Uptight Margaret isn’t having it. Knitting prayer shawls where people can watch is the most ridiculous idea she’s ever heard of, and she’s heard plenty. Prayer belongs in the church, not out among the heathen masses. How are they supposed to knit holiness into these shawls if they’re constantly distracted by the public? But with no choice, the others embrace the challenge. They pack their knitting bags and drag Margaret–grumbling the whole way–to the mall with them. She can’t wait to prove them all wrong when it fails miserably, and show the pastor that she always knows best.
Without the familiar mold the group has been stuck in, their own losses, pain, and struggles rise to the surface. And the people and situations they encounter every time they try to sit quietly and knit are taking them a lot further out of their comfort zone than they ever imagined. Can they find the courage to tackle the increasing number of knotty issues they learn about in the community–or will the tangle be too much to unravel?
Sharon Mondragon’s debut is warm and delightful, full of real laughter, grief, and personality. It beautifully illustrates the power of women across generations to reach people for Christ.
My thoughts:
This book was not something I “normally” read, but yet it was. I read a lot of mystery books, but even I need a break from the mysteries sometimes and enjoy a book that is going to make me think about my faith without bashing me over the head. I also don’t mind books that bash me over the head a little bit with my faith so…yeah…sometimes you need a lighter one though.
This book had it all – humor, lovable characters, meaningful moments, thoughtful passages, characters grappling with long-held emotional pain, and people finding a new awareness of God in their lives. It was realistic and raw without being inappropriate or salacious.
Some of the members like the idea of leaving the chapel and going into public, but at least one, Margaret, completely balks. The idea of the group is to knit quietly and pray over the shawls and the people who will receive them, she says.
Going out into the community, though, becomes an outreach for more than members of the public. Soon, the knitting group members are being ministered to as well. New friendships are formed, old hurts are healed, and the church is beginning to grow with new members. More importantly, some of the biggest objectors to moving the group out of the church are learning about themselves and coming closer to the God they said they wanted to serve.
I absolutely loved the members of the knitting club that is the center of this book. They immediately felt like friends. Out of all of them, I could actually relate to Margaret the mos,t even though she was the most “grumpy” out of the women. I don’t know that I am grumpy (others might disagree) but I am a control freak who doesn’t like change for a variety of reasons. There were some tough subjects in this book, and I don’t usually don’t like that in my books, but I kept going because I felt there would be some resolutions and comforts that were needed for the characters and the reader(s). The characters were also so lovable and, in most cases, sweet. I became very invested in their lives.
I will leave it to you to find out the meaning of the title and who the dragon lady really is.
Trigger warning: There is discussion of cancer and death in this book. It is handled very respectfully without going into graphic detail, but it could be difficult for some readers.
I listened to the majority of this one on Audible and enjoyed the narrator, Christina Moore.
I finished the last few chapters in a paperback, which I bought because I felt like I might want to loan it out to people in the future. This is the second book I read by Sharon (the first being Grandma Ruth Doesn’t Go To Funerals, which had a totally different feel to it) and I am certain I will be reading more. I really enjoy how her writing pulls you write into the story and makes you love her characters right from the start.
This summer I have been watching movies that Angela Lansbury starred in or co-starred. This week I watched my last movie for this particular event.
Up next will be Comfy, Cozy Cinema for autumn with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. The list of movies we are watching is at the bottom of this post.
On Wednesday, I decided the movie I had picked all the way back at the beginning of this marathon wasn’t really something I was interested in at all. I had not looked the movie up or watched anything about it before I picked it and I should have. So, instead, I decided to cap off my Angela Lansbury movie watching marathon with a TV movie from the show that made her a household name — Murder, She Wrote.
When Murder, She Wrote was canceled in 1996, Angela Lansbury and loyal fans of the show were heartbroken. Lansbury was also angry and disappointed. One thing that soothed the shocking blow was when CBS agreed to make a series of TV movies featuring the character to appease Lansbury and fans.
Sadly, none of the movies took place in Cabot Cove with the original cast, but they at least featured Angela as Jessica.
The last of those movies, The Celtic Riddle, which I chose to watch for this week, aired in 2003.
I thought it was interesting that Angela’s son, Anthony Shaw, was the director and producer for all four of the films. This movie was also dedicated to the memory of Peter Shaw, Jessica’s husband, who died that same year. I thought it was also interesting that Amazon just put the movie up this past week. Perfect timing for me!
Here is a bit of description from online: Intrepid investigator Jessica Fletcher travels to Ireland to attend the reading of an old friend’s will, but a series of murders which follow have the police baffled. Jessica realizes that the will contains clues to the whereabouts of a secret treasure, as well as pointing to the real killer.
In the beginning of the movie, Jessica arrives at a mansion in a taxi and then rushes inside to the will reading. She sits down and receives several glares from the others in attendance. It’s clear she is not welcome but we don’t know yet why or even who the people are.
We slowly begin to learn about the family as a man gives his last will and testament on a video on a TV at the front of the room. The man has an Irish accent and it’s soon clear we — er, Jessica I mean — is now in Ireland.
There is a woman wearing sunglasses who looks sour, another sour-looking woman next to her, a free-spirited girl with a tortoise, a youngish man with spiked hair who is glaring, another young man, an older man who is drinking from a flask, a nervous-looking housekeeper, and another man who is sort of plain.
Each of those people will later either become suspects or victims after the man who passed away — Eamon Byrne — has his lawyer give each of them an envelope with a clue inside that will lead them to a treasure. His hope seems to be that they will work together to find out the meaning of the clues. That will be hard to do when each person seems to have a gripe against another person in the group.
The people in the room, it turns out, are his lawyer, his two daughters, his one daughter’s (Breeta’s) boyfriend, a man who wants to be Breeta’s boyfriend, a drunk man, and the housekeeper (Nora).
They will all have to join forces to find the treasure but before that can happen people in the group start dropping like flies. The saddest murder to me was the last one but I won’t spoil why.
Jessica isn’t very welcomed by the family and she especially isn’t welcome when Eamon leaves her Rose Cottage for once saving his life when he was visiting Cabot Cove. This is a small cottage on the property but not the main house, which his called, fittingly, Second Chance.
The problem is that Breeta (Sarah Jane-Potts) is living in Rose Cottage to be away from her money and power-hungry family members. While she’s at first hostile toward Jessica for being given the cottage, they eventually become friends as they try to figure out Breeta’s father’s riddle and who is killing people off.
An aside: The little cottage reminded me of the house my elderly friend Rev. Reynolds and his wife Maud lived in. Rev. Reynolds built his home to look just like an Irish cottage since he was from Northern Ireland. It was so cozy and warm. I loved visiting them there (except when he had another project for me) It brings tears to my eyes to think of it and the memories there. I’m so glad another couple is living there now and keeping the cozy feel of it alive. I need to go visit them soon since I met them through Rev. Reynolds.
Anyhow…back to the show:
The lead inspector in this movie, by the way, was quite amused by Jessica’s suspicions and deductions after the first murder. He looked like he was about to burst into laughter as she laid out her theory.
He seemed to think it was super cute that this old lady mystery writer thought the man might have been hit on the head. I really liked the actor — Timothy V. Murphy. I thought he played the part perfectly. I felt like he was saying in his mind, “Aw..she’s so cute. The mystery writer thinks she knows how to solve a real crime.”
(Excuse the reproduction here – it’s from my computer because there were not a lot of images online from the movie.)
Of course he had to eat his words when it turned out she was right and from then on, he treated her gently and seemed to want to take care of her and also believe every theory she had.
This video is also from my laptop so not the best reproduction:
The Irish accents in this were on point which made me look up the actors to see if they were actually Irish. With names like Cyril O’Reilly, Timothy Murphy, and Fionnula Flanagan how could they not have been Irish? I didn’t have time to research each actor but most of them did seem to actually be Irish and from Ireland.
I did recognize Fionnula Flanagan, but I’m not sure from what. I must have seen her in something or other, though. It will come to me eventually.
As in any Murder, She Wrote episode there were moments where I was like, “Well, that was a stupid move!” Like at one point Jessica runs out the door in the middle of her and Breeta and Breeta’s boyfriend, Paddy, (Cyril O’Reilly) brainstorming who the murderer is and she just says, “Wait here. I’m going to check something out.”
I literally said to the screen: “Jessica! Tell them where you are going! You can’t just run off places alone. That’s dangerous and you’re an old lady now!”
That’s the thing about these mystery shows —someone is always doing something dumb and the characters and us viewers just shrug it off like it is normal — well, after we yell at them of course. *wink*.
Also, Breeta’s boyfriend looked waaay too old for her. Like he could have been her dad old. When I looked up the actors, he was indeed 20 years older than her. Ick.
I feel bad in some ways, that Angela Lansbury, an Oscar-nominated actress, chose to be in these movies. They apparently didn’t have much of a budget because the rocks in the one scene were so clearly fake. Like plastic or Styrofoam fake. Eeek. Angela Lansbury loved Murder, She Wrote, though, and she liked the escape it gave people so I know that’s why she agreed to do them. I like watching the reruns for the same reason. She really gave us a gift by playing Jessica, even is she knew it wasn’t always “great TV” exactly.
Excuse the reproduction here – it’s from my computer because there were not a lot of images online from the movie.
Despite all those weird little quirks and fake rocks in the movie, the story itself and the acting wasn’t too bad.
I will say I guessed the killer about ten minutes into the show because of his expressions (smiling and five seconds later frowning menacingly) but the mystery may be harder for you. They did a good job of dropping red herrings throughout the show to distract me and others, though.
I don’t know that I’d watch this again and again or even … again once, but it was a fun little escape, much like the show. I think this autumn I might watch the other movies and see what I think of those too.
But for now, this is the end of my Summer of Angela.
If you’d like to read what I thought of the other movies I chose you can find the links to them here:
If you were to ask me which ones from this list were my favorites I’d have to say Gaslight and The Manchurian Candidate. The biggest surprise for me was The Pirates of Penzance and the films that made me forget Angela as Jessica Fletcher was The Manchurian Candidate followed by A Life at Stake and then The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Up next, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be watching movies for Comfy, Cozy Cinema. Yes, we do know those two words are pretty much the same word and, no, we don’t care if that bothers anyone. *wink*
Here is the list of what we will be watching and the dates we will be writing about those movies:
You can also find impressions of movies we watched in the past Comfy, Cozy Cinemas HERE.
Have you ever seen this TV movie? What did you think of it?
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
Welcome to the A Good Book & A Cup of Tea (A Monthly Bookish Link Party) for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!) Each link party will be open for a month.
This month I have an additional co-host: Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs! You can link up with either of us! Thank you for agreeing to co-host, Erin!
So, some guidelines.
1. For Bloggers, you can link unlimited posts related to books and reading. These can be posts about what you’re reading, book reviews, books you’ve added to your shelf, reading habits, what you’ve been reading, about trips to bookstore, etc. You get the drift.
2. Link to a specific blog post (URL of a specific post, not your website). Feel free to link up any older posts that may need some love and attention, too.
3. Please visit at least two other bloggers on this list and comment on their posts. Have fun! Interact! Get some book recommendations.
4. Readers can click the blue button below to visit blog posts.
5. If you add a link, you are giving me permission to share and link back to your post(s).
Here are some highlights from the links from last month:
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.
I wrote about what’s been going on in my Saturday Afternoon Chat yesterday if you want to catch up there.
I will add that it is very chilly right now where I live. Yesterday morning it was 33 degrees in the morning for a little bit in a town near us that is located in one of the highest elevations. I know I said I wanted cooler weather but that’s ridiculous for August.
A reminder that I — and now my new co-host Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs — host a monthly bookish link party. It’s called A Good Book and a Cup of Tea but I’ve changed the link name at the top of the page to “Bookish Link Party” so it makes more sense. It’s a link up for any post related to reading or books and you can post throughout the month. The new link up for September will go up tomorrow morning .
Another reminder that Erin and I will be hosting a Comfy, Cozy movie watching marathon again this year, and we already have our list of movies.
Erin made this cool graphic for it:
Also, Erin and I host a monthly Crafternoon meet up where we get together on Zoom with other bloggers/crafters and do a craft while we chat about life and books and all kinds of other things. We do our best not to focus on religion or politics so we don’t depress ourselves.
If you are interested in the crafternoon, you can find more information here:
This past week I finished a Nancy Drew Mystery: Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene and A Betti Bryant Mystery: But First, Murder by Bee Littlefield
I’ll have reviews up for them both soon, but did share quick ratings on Storygraph.
I enjoyed both, even though Nancy Drew always has some weird things in it with her being almost kidnapped and her or her dad not calling the police! Oy! Those old juvenile mysteries. I swear! Ha!
But First, Murder was a lot of fun and the perfect follow-up to the first book, Clueless at the Coffee Station. I don’t usually like books written in first-person present tense, so it shows you how good the book must have been for me to continue despite that.
I really enjoy Bee’s writing style.
Finishing Bee’s book brought my total books read for the summer to 15, even though I had figured I might only read 10 because I am also writing my own book and have a lot going on personally.
I was going to take a little break on starting another book while I write reviews for the ones I’ve just finished this summer, but then I remembered my husband had bought me a Murder, She Wrote book on Kindle so I started Gin and Daggers by Donald Bain last night. It takes place in England so I’m looking forward to it.
I’ve also started, Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie. It’s a type of memoir about her travels with her second husband. I’m only a few pages in but I am enjoying it.
I hope to start The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 1 by Beth Brower soon because a bunch of people on Instagram keep mentioning this series.
I also have The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham on my radar and have for a while so Emma Lion might get pushed aside for that one first. I’ll see what my mood is since I am a mood reader
Little Miss and I are still reading The Good Master by Kate Seredy. We are also listening to The Moffats by Eleanor Estes at night.
Little Miss and I tried to watch our first Korean Drama yesterday – Bon Appetit, Your Majesty. We did not end up finishing it. It was not very good.
We watched K-Pop Demon Hunters a couple of times last week because of Little Miss. We are watching it again tonight because she wants her dad to see it. I would like the song Golden to please leave my head now. Thank you. I probably will not watch it again with them for this very reason. It’s a good song, but….enough is enough already.
I watched The Celtic Riddle, a Murder, She Wrote movie for my last Summer of Angela movie and will be posting about that tomorrow.
I also watched my farmer on YouTube – Just A Few Acres Farm and another YouTuber, Under A Tin Roof.
And of course a couple regular episodes of Murder, She Wrote.
And I watched Nonnas on Netflix. What a sweet film. If you have Netflix it is a good one.
I’m not very cool. I don’t watch a lot of modern TV, which is weird since I am not even 50 yet. *snort*
Last week I figured out an issue with the fourth book in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries and once that was addressed I felt I could move forward with finishing the book. It will still be a bit but I’m on my way to get it done at least.
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.
