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

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.

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

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 series by Phillip Craig was so wonderful and one of my favourite mystery series. When he passed away I knew there would be no more of J. W. and Zee's adventures. So, I was happy to see that a movie series would be made. Jesse Metcalfe makes a good Jeff, but the Zee character is unrecognizable. In the series Zee has long dark hair, is a very earthy & compassionate person, and is a nurse. For some odd reason, in the movie she is a blonde fashionista doctor. And her acting leaves much to be desired. She comes to a crime scene in high heels. Really? But I did enjoy the story and of course, the scenery. I live near where it was filmed and recognized some of the locations here in SouthW BC. I will watch the next one but really wish the movie reflected more of the books.

The movie seemed to get off to a decent start as far as procedures, which can be distracting when they are sloppy in these movies. The chief was calling for warrants and it looked like the writers would be on the ball. Turns out that the trend flopped soon after that. Jeff handles all kinds of evidence with no gloves. And other things. So OK, this series won't be great on procedures either.

Another minor hole is that Jeff is supposed to have a bullet near his spine and "his doctor" orders him to go easy, yet he spends the rest of the movie running, jumping and fighting.

The mystery is pretty good albeit a bit heavy handed. There are plenty of suspects and some of them are pretty mean looking or acting suspiciously. We get a few red herrings. I didn't figure out whodunit.

The acting is OK. Sarah Lind wasn't sparkling, but as another reviewer said, she didn't have a lot of opportunity to shine. I also agree with that review that the chemistry between her and Metcaff wasn't great, but it was starting to brew. Like all these Hallmark M&M's the leads develop some romance over several movies and I expect the same here. Sometimes there is virtually none in the first installment.

One of my complaints with these series is how unprofessional it is for "amateurs" to have so much involvement and especially to take so many risks. At least in this series, both of the leads have some justification in their involvement and Jeff is trained as a cop so when he takes a risk it is probably calculated.

I look forward to more Martha's Vineyard Mysteries, but I feel bad for this smaller community if murders start piling up.