Movie Review: A Zest for Death - A Hannah Swensen Mystery Movie

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Characters, solid mystery

Cons: Hannah’s stupidity for the climax

The Bottom Line:

House hunting and corpse

Fun characters, mystery

That fans will enjoy

“Are You Asking Me to Look into It?”  “Can You?”  “I Kinda Already Am.”

I’ve got to admit, I was kind of thrown by the ending of the previous Hannah Swensen movie.  I wasn’t really expecting the cliffhanger, but more than that, I felt like Hannah took things too far.  I was happy to hear that they were already working on the next movie in the franchise, so we didn’t have to wait that long to find out what happened next in A Zest for Death.

Hannah (Alison Sweeney) has had her sister, Michelle (Tess Atkins), staying with her for months, but Michelle has finally decided to try to find a place of her own.  However, most of the places seem to be out of her price range.  A new one has just come on the market, however, and the sisters, along with their mother Delores (Barbara Niven) are checking it out.  When Delores goes to check out the closet space, she finds the home’s current owner dead in her bedroom.  Unfortunately, this means that Hannah has to face Detective Mike Kingston (Cameron Mathison), her ex-fiance, again.  What will this mean for their relationship?  And will Hannah solve the latest case?

For fans wanting to track the movies and the books, this one was loosely based on the fourth book, Lemon Meringue Pie Murder.  It’s been long enough that I really couldn’t remember who had done it or why.  From looking at my review of the book, I can see some of the changes they made, but these are always loosely inspired by the books anyway.

This franchise was my gateway drug to Hallmark mystery movies, so it holds a special place in my heart.  That might have been part of the reason I was smiling almost as soon as I turned the movie on.  But the credit also goes to the actors and the characters.  They are so warm and familiar at this point I loved every minute of spending more time with them.  Yes, they are very different from their book counterparts, but I love them just as they are here.  And it was fun getting to see a character we haven’t seen for a few movies now pop back up.

The mystery was good.  It took a little while to uncover some solid suspects, but the story was still moving forward before we did that.  I figured it out when Hannah did, although I didn’t have the motive figured out yet.  In the meantime, I enjoyed following the clues and red herrings.

I will say that Hannah was rather stupid at the end of the movie.  Now, I’m willing to go along with stupid characters most of the time, but what she did in this case just didn’t make any sense to me at all.  You know, other than to get her into a dangerous climax situation.

And the situation with Mike?  Let’s just say they had the conversation they needed to have.  And could have had in the last movie if Hannah hadn’t decided to be dramatic.  I did like how that ended.  (Please, like you expected that storyline to end any other way.)

The actors do a fantastic job here.  In fact, they turn some scenes that could be cheesy into some of the funniest moments in the movie.  Yes, there are still low budget notes, but they are minor.

And there were plenty of character moments that had me laughing as I watched.  I’m especially glad to say they’ve toned down Michelle so she is a fun character now, unlike when she first showed up.  (I blame the writers for how they were writing her at that point.)

It is interesting to note that they introduced a character here who became a murder victim in a later book.  I’ll be very curious to see if that’s the next story we get.

Any fan of the Hannah Swensen franchise will enjoy every second of A Zest for Death.  It’s a delightful mystery from Hallmark.