Vision of a Murder

In order to bring in a bit extra money to cover up for the fact that few people every seem to use her bookstore, Samantha Kinsey takes on a photography assignment at a spa. Despite being cynical about all the new-age talk and hard selling of surgery, Samantha takes along Cassie to enjoy the facilities while she works. At the first meal of the visit, two other guests fall out because it transpires that one of the women (Debbie) has been sleeping with her friend Alice's husband. The next day one of the staff, a weirdly inward girl called Emily, tells Sam that Debbie is dead and leads them to a place in the woods that she claims she has seen in a vision. There they find Debbie's body – putting Emily at the top of the police's suspect list. Samantha however, believes Emily's claims of being psychic and knows that the real killer is still at the resort.

Having seen a couple of the Mystery Woman films I already knew that the films were quite undemanding and glossy mystery fare. So I didn't hope for much from this film otherwise than a bit of movement forward and enough to fill a grey Sunday afternoon. On that level the film does the job with a rather unconvincing plot that is played out pretty well. It is very much daytime television stuff and fans of the other mystery shows that clutter Hallmark will find it easy going and enjoyable.

As director Martin proves that she is as capable as anyone else working on similar material, but she doesn't do anything that made her standout. Likewise in the lead she is cute and has charisma but isn't anything that amazing. Support is the same from Siemaszko, who doesn't really convince in her character but makes a good friend for Samantha. Sander is pretty poor and isn't helped by his character being one big block of wood. Williams continues to take the money for the series in return for doing very little; however he seems to enjoy his "mysterious" character without ever having to do anything to justify it! Overall then a fairly basic mystery tvm but one that does enough to distract and will please fans of the series and other daytime TV movies in the similar vein. Nobody does anything that special and the plot relies heavily on the weak tool of Emily's psychic visions even if it manages to get past it by building the case well.

Spunky Samantha Kinsey runs a mystery bookstore. It is typical of many current independent bookstores today in that no one apparently patronizes it despite its plentiful selection and a great atmospheric vibe. In her free time Samantha is a freelance photographer because after bookstore proprietor, most women fantasize of being freelance photographers, and this series is quite dutiful in attempting to appeal to its target audience. Besides, if Samantha didn't get out of her bookshop it would be hard to construct a series of murder mysteries for her to solve without them seeming extremely contrived, as opposed to semi-contrived like this one. There's a murder at a health spa where Samantha has been taking photos and she is determined to get to the bottom of it. She keeps returning to the spa to grill the suspects, and I'm not sure why none of them tell her to beat it since she's a photographer and not a cop. Luckily Samantha has her friend Cassie the D.A. who is spunky too, so Cassie can help her grill the suspects when Samantha is off following other leads. Samantha also has help from one of The Mod Squad, Linc, who has connections in the various federal criminal bureaus. He contacts them via the internet which constantly amazes Samantha. Linc, or Philby as he is known to his mystery women, apparently never leaves the bookstore for fear that the one time he is away a customer might actually show up to purchase a book. This episode featured Felicia Day as Emily who has visions referred to in the title. I really liked Felicia Day and her character, although it was too bad her vision wasn't a little clearer so that she could have helped Samantha identify the murderer a lot sooner.

Kellie Martin former ADA and now bookstore proprietor with Clarence Williams,III has landed herself a new job at a spa. But it's all a blind as she is doing a little unofficial investigating of a woman who died at the spa and Martin suspects foul play. That's not going to make police chief Casey Sander happy as he really hates people showing up his cops, even former law enforcement. Of all the people in those Hallmark mystery series films Sander and Martin definitely have the worst relationship.

The spa is run by Charles Shaughnessy formerly of the Nanny and he's almost a caricature really buying into all the line of hype he uses to bring in the customers.

Key to all this is Felicia Dean who as a juvenile helped mom and grandma in a phony psychic gypsy racket. But she actually may have abilities. In any way someone doesn't want to take that chance.

Nicely done, especially the climax trap where the murderer is revealed and caught.

Actress Kellie Martin makes her TV directorial debut on this fun detective series, after the 2004 short film Frenching. I hadn't noticed this series before, not being a big Hallmark Channel watcher, but I was intrigued by the book angle. The Mystery Woman series is part of revolving trio of detectives shows that fill a two hour time slot. I haven't seen any of the others, but I think two hours is a great time period, lots of room for stuff to happen, room to flesh out the story. I enjoyed the fun interplay between the main group of characters, played by Kellie Martin, Nina Siemaszko, Casey Sander, and Clarence Williams III. In Vision of Murder Kellie and Nina visit a spa so Kellie, who's also a photographer, can take pictures for their new brochure. At least these writers know it's really hard to make a living from just selling books. These are all good actors, and everyone does a good job bringing their characters to life. Nothing new or strikingly original about the show, it kind of reminded me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, without the fighting or monsters, and if Buffy was about 30. In a bookstore rather than a library, Kelly spearheads the chase, Clarence does the research, Assistant DA Nina is the law-talking' gal, with Casey as the cynical chief of police. Puzzles to solve, lots of computer work,and lots and lots of talking but not much action, get the bad guy caught, after a smidge of suspense. There is some book talk, Clarence telling a possibly psychic woman about some fictional psychic detectives. It's nice to encourage book reading. Watch a movie, read a book, that's my motto, and this low throttle thriller has people talking about books, so what's not to like. A good solid piece of entertainment, nicely directed.

Kellie Martin's Mystery woman series runs on Hallmark, and this is one of the better installments. She (a book store owner) and her friend Cassie (a district attorney) take time off to attend a health spa joint that employs some controversial off beat quackery methods to help patrons attain beauty. (When you see Sam and Cassie, you'll wonder why they feel they need to improve anything, but I digress.) A girl dies mysteriously at the spa. And so amateur sleuth Sam is on the case, with Cassie right beside her. Suspects are too few in number, but the course of the story makes this TV film a nice diversion. Kellie Martin's spunky character is somewhere between Murder She Wrote and Columbo, although she's more spunky than Jessica and not nearly as eccentric as the cigar smoking Lt. Columbo. Cassie makes a good counterpoint, being more down to Earth, but just as determined to catch the killer. When spa attendees start to get sick, the situation intensifies.

Not bad at all for an evening in, if you like the easy-going light hearted pace used here. Martin and her co-stars brighten things up, and there's a nice mix of interesting personalities in this one.