Customer Reviews

Reel Murder: A Talk Radio Mystery

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

`It was giving me a little chill to think that the murderer was probably right here on the set with us. It had to be someone connected with the Death Watch production, didn't it? So many possibilities. I'd narrowed them down in my mind, turning them over and over, and outside of Frankie Domino - who still was the mystery man - all of them had a motive for killing Adriana. Sidney Carter had Adriana to thank for his ruined career. There was no love lost between Sandra Michaels and Adriana, that much was clear. Carla hated Adriana, and blamed her for the loss of a lucrative book deal. And Hank Watson? Adriana's death certainly paved the way for his young girlfriend, Tammilynne, to step into the starring role. And if Adriana really had been having an affair with Lori's husband, maybe the actress would have been angry enough to kill her. My head was reeling, and Nick interrupted my jumbled thoughts.'

Maggie Walsh is a Cypress Grove, Florida talk show psychologist. Her mother Lola is an aging actress still waiting to be noticed by an A-list producer. Hopefully, someone will notice her as she plays a part in a movie being produced in Cypress Grove called Death Watch.

Maggie is invited to serve as a script consultant for the show, working mainly with by Sandra Michaels in her part as a forensic psychologist. As Maggie, the director and assistant director watch the scene taking place on the water's edge between Adriana St. James, the leading lady, meets with the killer Jeff Walker, the unthinkable happens. When Walker pulls the trigger of the prop gun, Adriana falls but the blood flowing from the wound is not prop blood. It's real. As Maggie starts her own investigation in the death of Adriana, she finds the wasn't the most fondly thought of person on the set. It seemed that everyone Maggie met had nothing but bad things to say about Adriana, making everyone a suspect.

This is my second book in the Maggie Walsh series that I've read. The 1st in the series is titled "Dead Air." And it kept me going to the end. When I read a mystery, I like to see how quickly I can discover the guilty party. I usually make a note of the page number that I'm on when I make my decision. Sometimes I have to change that number many times before the end of the book. With Reel Murder, I had no clue until page #268 and this book is only 292 pages long! Mary Kennedy kept me in suspense that long! As in Dead Air, you will find humor as well as excitement and fast page turning.

I like this series, but as a South Floridian, it annoys me that the author has set her book here but has apparently done no research at all on the area. She constantly flubs the locations of town and landmarks and includes silly things, like characters driving on A1A to get from Palm Beach County to Miami (a trip that would take hours doing that way).

The characters are cute and I've enjoyed both stories so far, but I feel like the author's been sloppy in her research, which takes away from my enjoyment.

I really enjoyed this book. So many books nowadays have all kinds of foul language and sex in them. I hope Mary Kennedy will continue to write these good books.

Maggie gave up her well paying private practice as a clinical psychologist in Manhattan to host a radio show On The Couch With Maggie on WYME in Cypress Grove, Florida. Her show is below the bottom rung of the station; under the Swine Report. Most A list guests do not want to travel to the small hamlet, but a movie is coming to town thanks to director Hank Watson and Maggie's mother Lola Watson has a role.

The producer of Maggie's show thinks her ratings will jump if she gets the movie stars to come on the air with her. Maggie agrees to try to obtain interviews and learn what gossip is being tossed about. Hank asks Maggie to be a forensic consultant and she agrees as she can use the fee he offers her. Trouble occurs when someone shoots and kills the star Adriana St. James using a prop gun. Maggie investigates and learns that the actress was universally hated by all. Meanwhile someone does not like Maggie's sleuthing and sends her warning notes to back off or else. She is fortunate not to get killed when a prop light falls on the chair she just vacated and her mother is lured into an empty warehouse where she is almost is killed. Neither the sexy police detective or Maggie knows who the killer is, but the perp plans to keep it that way even if a second victim is needed.

The latest "Talk Radio" amateur sleuth (see Dead Air) is an amusing mystery with quirky characters and several suspects with powerful motives. Occurring on a movie set, intrepid but foolish Maggie investigates and does so in a believable manner befitting a forensic psychologist. Readers will enjoy reading Mary Kennedy's lighthearted whodunit as the heroine charms readers who will want her to conduct more future inquiries.

Harriet Klausner

The downfall of this book (and the one that preceded it) is that the author thinks she's far more intelligent than the reader and must explain everything to us. Every `difficult' word or term is defined and explained; for example, in this book the storyline is about a film production that comes to town, and the death that takes place during a shooting scene in the movie. A movie production is when several actors get together and make a film. A film is something that is recorded for later viewing on a screen. There are actors and assistants there, and a craft services table. This is a table where the snacks are kept. And so on... I felt like the book was a tutorial and that the author didn't have (or doesn't have) the belief that her readers already know basic stuff. Her `teaching' doesn't stop throughout the entire book; everything is explained in detail as if you don't already know. In any event, the characters from the first book - Dead Air - are all back. Maggie, the local radio psychologist, her mother (the actress) Lola, Rafe Martino (the detective) and Lula Mae, the radio assistant. They are all on the trail of a killer when the movie set turns into a dangerous place to be. There is very little interaction between Rafe/Maggie (although she talks about him all the time); the story is really centered on the movie plot/characters and Maggie's mother, Lola. Lola has a major part this time and is actually a far more diverse and interesting character than Maggie. The series just isn't good; the main character is (supposedly) a well-educated psychologist and yet she allows a blue-collar detective to talk down to her and ridicule her work time after time. The writing in this book hasn't improved since the last one (in fact it probably got worse) so I'd skip this book and series completely.

But it could have used sharper editing for one thing. Twice the author uses the same words to have Maggie think that the detective's hair is longer than the uniform officers but that he probably has more leeway. Also, I'm just getting tired of supposedly intellegent women who get all hot and bothered chemically over someone who has no respect for her intellegence or profession. If there's a third book, I'll give it a chance. Possibly.