Manuscript for Murder

September 3, 2018
Land’s farfetched second entry in the Murder, She Wrote franchise (after A Date with Murder) takes mystery author Jessica Fletcher from Cabot Cove, Maine, to New York City, where her publisher, Lane Barfield, is eager to tell her about his latest acquisition: Benjamin Tally’s first novel, The Affair. Lane says it’s the best political thriller he’s ever read, and he gives Jessica the manuscript to get her opinion. The next morning, at her Manhattan apartment, Jessica turns on the TV and learns that Lane is dead, an apparent suicide. On the train ride home, Jessica reads The Affair and realizes that Tally must have insider information about the current U.S. president’s family, which includes her friend, First Lady Stephanie Albright. Jessica later goes to Washington, D.C., where she meets with Stephanie, President Robert Albright, and a couple of top aides, who are worried that Tally knows some family secrets that could be potentially damaging to the president. That Jessica winds up an unlikely action hero won’t daunt series fans.

October 1, 2018
Venturing outside Cabot Cove, Maine, Jessica Fletcher (A Date with Murder, 2018, etc.) finds the rest of the country just as dangerous.During a visit to New York, Jessica is approached by fellow author Thomas Rudd, who claims that their publisher, Lane Barfield, is skimming money from their royalties. When Rudd fails to show up for a meeting, Jessica has only to follow her nose to his building to find out that he was killed in an apparent gas explosion that looks suspicious to both her and her old friend NYPD lieutenant Artie Gelber. When Jessica goes to her publisher's office and tells him Rudd is dead, Barfield can barely contain his excitement about The Affair, a first novel he's just acquired from an unknown author named Benjamin Tally. He thinks it will be a blockbuster, but he asks Jessica to read it to see if she agrees. Besides the manuscript he hands over to Jessica, Barfield had a copy of The Affair on a thumb drive he says Rudd stole. Jessica asks her accountant to look into Rudd's claim about her royalties, and he thinks there may have been something odd going on--but when Barfield dies, an apparent suicide, Jessica has a bad feeling about his death, too. She goes to Barfield's office and asks his assistant, Zara, a few questions about Barfield's mood and about The Affair, but Zara can't find anything in the computer system about the book or its author. On starting to read the manuscript during her trip home, Jessica finds it so gripping that she can't put it down. It's a bloody and harrowing tale of a young man who's been kidnapped and brought up to be a killer by the mysterious Guardians and who saves the president's daughter from hired killers after she overhears a dangerous secret. Two other authors Barfield asked to read the manuscript are murdered, and Jessica is attacked and left for dead in her burning house before she can finish reading her copy. Deeply shaken and highly motivated, she joins forces with Gelber and her old friend Mort Metzger, the sheriff of Cabot Cove, to uncover the truth. All the clues lead to Washington, D.C., where they reveal a series of mind-blowing secrets.An action-packed treat for conspiracy theorists that more skeptical readers may find hard to swallow.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 1, 2018

In this new "Murder She Wrote" novel, readers enter the mystery-solving mind of writer Jessica Fletcher. The story begins with once-successful writer Thomas Rudd telling Jessica that he believes their mutual editor and Jessica's publisher, Lane Barfield, has stolen money from their accounts. A day later, Barfield asks for her opinion on The Affair, a confidential manuscript that promises to be the next big political thriller and will bankrupt his company if it doesn't sell. Jessica has the only copy, except for the one on the flash drive stolen by Rudd when he'd confronted Barfield about embezzlement. But when both men turn up dead from apparent suicides, Jessica must unravel the mystery of whether the explosive manuscript is at the heart of their deaths. Contributing his second Fletcher mystery, "Caitlin Strong" author Land refreshingly remakes the gutsy amateur sleuth into a more modern version, adding contemporary trends and technology into her quests for justice. Fans of the Murder, She Wrote TV series will be smitten with the revamped Jessica. VERDICT Both Jessica junkies and those who never knew they were cozy mystery fans will have a blast reading this modernized Fletcher whodunit.--K.L. Romo, Duncanville, TX

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.