Aurora Teagarden Mysteries: How to Con a Con

This has to be my third favorite Aurora Teagarden movie after The Julius house and A bundle of trouble! A huge step up from the last few movies!

This movie was quite good, an intriguing mystery without any of the annoyances that plagued other movies. There were two main reasons I wasn't going to watch this. Sally Allison's whining and Aida Teagarden's narcissistic chauvinism.

Sally Allison didn't whine at all! Even when she was trying to get out of doing what Aurora wanted. It was refreshing! I'm so glad she is being portrayed as an adult instead of a whiny little kid.

Aida is no longer harassing Aurora to "get a man" and "dress to attract" and asking her fiancé to control her. She seems to have finally realised that her daughter is an independent adult who can make her own choices. She's still protective but is no longer treating Aurora as a child.

I'm assuming that this is down to the new director, if so I certainly hope he directs many more. This is how the series should be!

Ro (Candace Cameron Bure) and Nick (Niall Matter) press pause on their wedding planning when Aida (Marilu Henner), Ro's mother and Lawrenceton's best real estate agent, stumbles upon a murder. Her clients, Ben and Bianca Avery (David Lewis and Sarah Jane Redmond), are preparing a move but discover an outstanding $500k loan on their house. Neither seems to know anything about it, and soon after Ben starts looking into the matter, he ends up strangled to death on his living room floor.

Despite the over-convoluted mystery, and the story dragging a little, it's a fairly fun Aurora Teagarden mystery which features identity theft and a killer who likes to strangle his victims with a wire. It's very hard not to be charmed with this series, though, here, Lexa Doig isn't too whiny, which is a letdown. Love her moany character. Her character is the best and her and Roe work well together.

Mrs. Shullivan and I enjoy guessing who is the guilty suspect(s) in any good murder/mystery movie and this episode did not disappoint by providing us with a smorgasbord of potential villains/suspects. Aurora Teagarden (Candace Cameron Bure) is at her best as the inquisitive librarian/mystery sleuth supported by her newspaper reporter friend Sally Allison (Lexa Doig) as they sift through oodles and oodles of potential suspects even as their friends and/or family members are placed in dangerous situations at the hands of the villains.

There appears to be some similarities between murders that were committed three years apart with a cord for strangling the victims still present around their necks. Similar to a scrumptious buffet table, you could almost see Aurora Teagarden salivating to get involved and get to the bottom of this mystery.

It's light and fun entertainment. Don't consider this series to be thrillers but more like romantic adventures and you won't be disappointed. I give it a decent 7 out of 10 IMDB rating.

Waiter, we would like another serving of another episode of Aurora Teagarden please. Coming right up! Hopefully before year end 2021)

6/10 - one of the more forgettable entries in the long-running mystery series, but good enough for the hour and 20 minutes spent watching.