Murder by the Book

"Murder by the Book," also known as "Alter Ego," is a 1987 TV movie starring Robert Hays and Catherine Mary Stewart. The film also features Fred Gwynne and Celeste Holm.

Hays plays a mystery writer, D.H. "Hank" Mercer who writes stories about a hard-boiled detective, Biff Deegan. He's grown tired of Biff, and he tells his agent he has a new idea for a character. While in a restaurant with his agent, he sees a pretty young woman (and you know it's the '80s because her hair goes out about three feet) being forced into a car. The perpetrator is an extremely wealthy man (Gwynne).

Mercer is determined to find out what is going on. While doing so, his fictional detective starts showing up and giving him advice.

Cute. Hays is such a likable and attractive actor, one wonders why the success of "Airport" didn't translate into some better vehicles for him.

This is really light as air, but enjoyable nonetheless.

What a waste of time! Why did I watch it to the end? I guess I'm dumber than the movie. This is no Agatha Christie, for sure.

Where can you buy the dvd you can't find it anywhere I was really looking forward watching it too

Robert hayes (airplane) is mercer, who writes murder mysteries. And is trying to figure out how to make his characters more exciting and realistic. He's so bored with his current lead, that he wants to move on to another character. But his publisher won't let him out of his contract. So he'd better hurry up and solve this mystery, with or without his character deegan so he can start the new book. The awesome celeste holm (all about eve) is mercer's mother. Character actor fred gwynne is in here as the bad guy. And one of the cops is clearly channeling columbo, which had started airing years before, in the early 1970s. It's all pretty dated at this point. Moves quite slowly, but it's okay. Directed by mel damski. He had been nominated for an oscar on his documentary about the palm springs follies. Novel by mel arrighi. Lots of films with this same name... even another one released in 1987. Although this one was filmed in 1985, but not aired (straight to television ?) until march 1987. That's goofy.

This was a fun movie with good performances all around. There weren't any real surprises for me and I doubt there would be for anyone over 12. But that's what genre fiction is for; it's comfort food for the mind. Full disclosure: I'm a writer, so I may have identified a bit more with our protagonist than most would.