Murder She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle - Page 2

So I had hopes that time away from the show would help Murder's writers: watching the opening credits, I found my hopes rising even further. Scriptwriters Rosemary Ann Sisson & Bruce Lansbury were adapting the story from a for-real mystery novel set in Ireland and entitled The Celtic Riddle. Perhaps we'd get to see ol' J.B. displaying some real ratiocination?

Nope. Sorry. I haven't read the Lyn Hamilton source novel, but I bet it's more complex than the by-the-numbers whodunnit we got here. The most intriguing aspect of the mystery, the titular Riddle, is so perfunctorily handled that we don't even get to see our heroine work through it in any detail; the plot has not one, but two, different characters who resort to anagrams; and, yes, there's an out-of-context conversation a half hour into the two-hour movie that pretty much keys you into who the killer's gonna be.

Angela Lansbury remains appealing as J.B. Fletcher, though she's definitely starting to look a bit frail to be wandering around dry-iced cemeteries in the middle of the night. She remains her usual all-too-observant self with an uncanny ability to pop up in the background just as some distressed twosome are involved in an argument that'll advance the plot. At one point, a character calls her a "Nosy Parker," and Jessica cheerfully owns up to it.

Still, at this stage in her career, you've gotta wonder why anyone would invite the old gal to their house. Don't they realize that having her on the premises is practically a guarantee somebody's gonna get their head bashed in tonight? Maybe that was intentional this time. The one who brings her on the scene, after all, is a late businessman who'd made Jessica one of his beneficiaries. Considering how nasty his widow and eldest daughter are played, perhaps he was counting on the Fletcher Curse to get 'em. . .

Article Author: Bill Sherman

Bill Sherman is the Comics & Graphic Novels review editor for Blogcritics. With his lovely wife Rebecca Fox, he has recently co-authored a sudsy size acceptance novel entitled Measure By Measure.

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