Book Review: Final Cut by Marjorie McCown (Hollywood Mysteries #1)

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Setting and main characters

Cons: Plot needed work

The Bottom Line:

Death on movie set

Blockbuster behind the scenes

But plot needed work

Deadly First Day on Set

The multi-focus on my blog comes from my equal loves of reading and Hollywood.  Naturally, that meant that Final Cut caught my eye since it’s the first in the Hollywood Mysteries.  The series focuses on a costume designer and is written by a retired costume designer.  I was definitely intrigued.

We meet Joey Jessop on the first day of filming for a block buster superhero movie.  Of course, this isn’t Joey’s first day on the job – she’s been working for months prepping the costumes, a job made more complicated by the last-minute casting.  Joey’s seeing a lot of long days ahead of her, but she loves the process.

However, this first day isn’t going well.  Rumors about the producer/director Marcus Pray are true, and Joey witnesses his abusive behavior toward the lead actress first hand.  Then, an electrical accident happens, injuring Joey in the process.  That night, Joey finds the body of the second assistant director on the beach near where they’ve been filming.

Courtney, the victim, was dating Eli, the first assistant director and Joey’s ex-boyfriend.  While Joey and Eli are trying to behave in a professional manner, Courtney had picked a very public fight with Joey.  It is soon clear that Joey is one of the prime suspects in the case, but Joey thinks that it was someone else on the set.  Can she figure out what is going on?

As much as I am fascinated by the film making process, this book did get a little too lost in the details, especially early on.  It went a little beyond scene setting into the minutia for me.  Still, the conflicts are getting set up during this time.

Notice I said conflicts.  There are multiple things going on in this book, and the murder gets lost in the shuffle.  Joey does learn some things along the way, but she is more caught up in her job to pursue it fully.  And there are lots of events happening to keep us interested without a ton of detection.  When the climax does come, part of it was anti-climactic, while the rest was an action scene worthy of a block buster movie.  I cared enough about Joey to be caught up in the action.  There was one aspect that felt weak in the end, and a few other things that are never really explained.

As you might have picked up on, a big aspect of this book is a Me Too inspired storyline.  I’ll admit, I was hesitant to pick up the book for that reason, but I found myself mostly enjoying how that storyline was handled.  I think one reason I liked it was that story was mostly about Joey’s reaction to things and her struggle to do what she knew was right when she knew what it would cost her professionally.  It is easy for us to judge about what we’d do, but this reminded me that it isn’t always as easy as it seems from the outside.

And I did like Joey and several of the other characters.  There were a lot, and those on the periphery of the story only got a little bit of development, but there were several characters that I came to care for.  Or came to loath, as was appropriate.

Plus, I did enjoy the larger setting.  I always have fun reading books set in Southern California.  We get a little bit of name dropping, which made me smile, and overall, I enjoyed the backstage Hollywood setting as well.

The flaws in the plotting made Final Cut a mixed bag for me.  Considering the setting, I wanted to like it more than I did.  If you find Hollywood fascinating, you might enjoy this murderous look behind the scenes.

NOTE: I received a copy of this book