“Welcome to the Club. Everyone in Elk Park Has Been a Suspect in Murder in the Last Year.”
Hallmark is about to switch over to Christmas movies for the rest of the year, but before they do that, we got one last mystery movie – Fatal Vows. This is the third in their Curious Caterer series based extremely loosely on the Goldy Bear Mysteries from Diane Mott Davidson. As usual for these movies, I enjoyed it.
This movie finds Goldy Berry (Nikki Deloach) (yes, they changed her last name for the movies) catering the social event of the season in Elk Park – the wedding of Jessamyn and Sterling (Amanda Khan and Kareem Malcolm). Jessamyn happens to be the ex-wife of Detective Tom Schultz (Andrew W. Walker), Goldy’s love interest.
But the fireworks happening at the rehearsal dinner have nothing to do with any exes. There seems to be bad blood among several people at the dinner, and that is before Sterling gets drunk. Everyone manages to get through the event, but the next morning, Sterling is found dead in the hotel lobby and Jessamyn is missing. The police think Tom was involved, so he and Goldy team up to prove his innocence. Can they do it?
I only read the first book in the series, and that was over 15 years ago, so I know very little about the books, but I know enough to know that pretty much they’ve borrowed a few character names, and that’s it. Nothing else is the same. Case in point? This movie is supposed to be based on The Last Suppers, the fourth in the series, but in the book, Goldy and Tom are getting married, and Tom is the one who goes missing. Yeah, nothing alike at all, are they?
But, since I haven’t read the books, I can sit back and enjoy this movie solely on its own merits. And I did enjoy it. I find missing person cases pull me in since there’s added suspense, so I was anxious to find out if they’d find Jessamyn or not. Meanwhile, we have several strong suspects that kept me guessing.
I was surprised to find more humor than I remembered from the first two movies. The detective brought in to replace Tom because of the conflict of interest (even before Tom becomes a suspect) provides some laughs, as does the rookie detective. Meanwhile, we get some great scenes between Goldy and Tom.
In fact, we get to see lots of them together since they are working together to solve the case this time. I really enjoyed that. They make a great pair.
The cast is all great here. I didn’t find nearly the notes of low budget cheese I often see in Hallmark movies, which I appreciated.
I know fans of the novels are disappointed with these movies. And, as a huge reader, I get the frustrations. But, if you are coming to these movies without any preconceived ideas of what they should look like, you’ll enjoy Fatal Vows.
I like both of these actors and this does sound fun. Hallmark definitely plays fast and loose with the "based on"!
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