A Beautiful Place to Die: A Martha's Vineyard Mystery

Lame story and bad acting sink this from the get-go. And why on earth would anyone do a series that's set on Martha's Vineyard and film it in Vancouver?

Jesse Metcalfe isn't bad as the Boston cop retired for an injury. He returns to the Vineyard to clean up his dead father's affairs and gets involved with a sappy doctor (Sarah Lind) and a local murder. The murder plot is lame and not terribly interesting. The acting is atrocious.

The setting looks nothing like the real Martha's Vineyard no matter how many times they mention Boston. By the way, the Vineyard is not off the coast of Boston, it's off the coast of Cape Cod. The sweeping vistas of the island (with skyscrapers in the distance) are insulting to anyone who's been to the Vineyard.

Aside from Metcalfe's Jeff Jackson, the characters are all dumber than dirt. The local police chief (the doctor's daddy) is a total dope. The doctor herself never seems to work and becomes Jeff's sidekick, traipsing around the island in high-heeled sandals and "little outfits." Indeed, all the women overdress, which is a key as to who the audience is for this tripe.

The other annoying thing is that the characters walk around with their coffees though it's obvious the cups are all empty. Also, the characters trample every crime scene and don't even wear gloves while they poke around. Bleh!

This first part of a new Hallmark series is basically a police procedural. A big-city cop returns to the tranquility of Martha's Vineyard only to become involved in a murder case.

Jesse Metcalfe plays the reluctant detective, Jeff Jackson, who may suffer from PTSD and wants to avoid police work or unnecessary stress. But his natural tendency to be observant leads him to a corpse in the water just off the pier. When he gets pulled into the case, he works with Zee Madeiras (Sarah Lind), the acting ME with whom he has a personal history.

There is not much romance in this first installment, which is fine. The story revolves around uncovering real suspects among a confusing group of possibles, and reconstructing the events of the night when the murder occurred.

Hallmark in launching a new mystery series decided to have a male protagonist for a change. Jesse Metcalfe who took a bullet that is lodged close to his spine is a former Boston homicide cop who took disability retirement and went to live at Martha's Vineyard where he spent some time as a kid.

Of course a murder is committed of a young man trying to buttonhole some of the Vineyard's leading citizens and it's Metcalfe who finds the body. After that his cop instincts just take over and the Martha's Vineyard police chief Eric Keenleyside welcomes his help.

As does the chief's daughter Sarah Lind. The trio of course get the case solved with a murderer you might not have thought had a connection.

This was a good mystery, let's see if Hallmark continues the series.

The story line was interesting, was unsure how this would play out. Not always a big Jesse Metcalfe fan, however his recent Hallmark Christmas movie was not that bad and his acting here was good. From what I read this was Sarah Lind's first Hallmark movie, her acting was a bit stiff, but maybe with another couple of movies under her belt could rectify that situation. I thought the supporting roles were well played, bottom line, i expected a mundane flick and got something better in return.

7/10 - such a refreshingly different Hallmark movie and a genuinely intriguing mystery