Filming a Commercial is Killer
When I sat down to read The Kill of It All, I realized it had been six months since my last visit with Madison Night. I’ve been reading the books closer together than that in an effort to catch up on the series. The elapsed time made me extra glad to get back into the series.
For those who might have missed the series, Madison Night is an interior decorator in Dallas, Texas, with a specialty in mid-century modern designs. She gained her interest from a lifelong love of Doris Day movies.
As this book opens, Madison has just filmed a commercial to help promote the reopening of her business, Mad for Mod. It’s gotten her more exposure than she was initially expecting, and that also lands her a job doing the new campaign to help the local police gain some goodwill. Since Madison’s boyfriend is a police captain, she can hardly say no.
Madison shows up to the commercial shoot a little early and finds a dead body – that of the actress she is replacing on the shoot. Suddenly, the crew is looking more like suspects in a murder. Can Madison use her status in the production to figure out who the killer is?
Anyone familiar with Doris Day movies will recognize the set up for the mystery. Each book in this series has included a few nods to one of the actress’s movies, but this is the first time I remember the set up mirroring a movie this closely. However, it’s not an issue at all. After all, The Thrill of It All was a romantic comedy, not a murder mystery. Honestly, you could give ten authors a premise and get ten different stories. Anyway, that isn’t the only nod to the movie in the book, and I enjoyed spotting them as always.
But if you aren’t familiar with the movie, that’s not an issue. As I said, this book is a murder mystery, and the story works on its own. I was quite intrigued by the mystery, and there were several surprises on the way to the logical climax. I was engaged the entire time and didn’t want to put the book down when real life got in the way of my reading.
We don’t see many returning characters in this book, but I enjoyed seeing the ones we did. Madison and Tex, her boyfriend, are growing into a strong couple, and I enjoyed watching them together again. The others are fun, and we learned just a bit more about another one. Madison is continuing to grow, and I enjoyed watching that again.
This means it falls to the suspects to round out the cast. They are great. I enjoyed meeting them here, and they felt right at home in Madison’s world. I wouldn’t mind seeing a couple of them again in future books.
This series is a bit more serious than some of Diane’s other books overall. Don’t worry, there are still some laughs along the way as always.
Unfortunately, there were just a couple of things that needed to get smoothed out in the book with another edit. Nothing that truly impacted the plot was an issue, however, so this is more an irritant for me than a true issue.
While there are references to a couple of previous books, there aren’t any spoilers for the mysteries. There are some spoilers for Madison’s personal life, but there isn’t much that can be done about that. If you jump in here, you’ll enjoy the book, but either way, you’ll find yourself wanting to read more in this series.
I really enjoyed getting to catch up with Madison Night again. If you are a fan who hasn’t yet read The Kill of It All, you’ll want to fix that today.
Enjoy the rest of the Madison Night Mysteries.
This is such a fun series and I love all the mid century references. I need to get caught up on this one.
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