Ah, the joys of election time in a small New England town. All that energy and excitement can be overshadowed by only one thing—the making of a movie. This is a fun book where a New England town, an election, and the making of a movie come together in some, well, delectably murderous ways. Perhaps I should explain:Faith Fairchild has been asked to cater for a movie company that has come to her small community to remake Hawthorne’s classic The Scarlet Letter. Among those working for the company is a female high-school bully who had made Faith’s life rather miserable during those years. Of course, many of the people in town are asked to play extra parts, and there’s an election in the offing, too, which promises to be controversial indeed.Early on, cast members suffer from food poisoning, very nearly ruining forever Faith’s reputation and that of her fledgling catering company. But the food poisoning is nothing compared to the shocking murder of a 20-something-year-old girl who was hired initially to be a gopher but who proved she had just enough of an erotic look to be more than a little appealing on camera.Surprisingly enough, the author drops the F-bomb in here a couple of times, and when one character engages in excessive use of profanity, it’s rather amateurishly done. That may have been the author’s intent to demonstrate the instability of the character, but it made me feel as if I were eavesdropping on a playground in the ‘70s and the loud-mouthed bossy girl was heaving forth profanity by the mouthful. It just seemed a bit jarring and out of place for this series.The series is rather formulaic; yet again, Faith’s life is endangered, and she’s forced to promise poor Tom, her husband, that she won’t do that kind of thing again—but the next book in the series is buried on my hard drive somewhere, so we know how that promise turns out.Still, it’s a fun, albeit predictable, mystery. The magic of this series for me isn’t so much the mystery as the characterization of Faith herself. The author skillfully writes the character such that your heart instinctively goes out to her. She is immensely likable and so realistically portrayed that you’re pretty sure you could hear her voice and be captivated by her charm and propensity to both common sense and frilly things simultaneously.
As The Body in the Cast opens, Faith Fairchild is back in Aleford, Mass. with her second child, baby Amy, safely born, and her catering business getting up and running again. It's a stroke of good fortune for her that an eccentric director has chosen Aleford as the location for his updated version of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Faith gets the catering contract. Meanwhile, a local political race is keeping things humming among the townspeople. As misfortunes, some of them culinary, begin to bedevil the production, Faith must investigate to protect her business. Plot and subplot are woven together neatly, but not too neatly, and the character flaws of the villains lead to their undoing. I enjoyed the setting in a New England town which seemed very familiar, and the description of the film-making process rang true. I'm looking forward to more of Faith Fairchild's adventures.
What do You think about The Body In The Cast (1994)?
Well, duh, it took forever for me to figure out the relevance on the so-very obvious title! Fifth in the New-England based mystery series, Faith Fairchild, Body in the Cast finally has Have Faith up and running shortly after Amy's birth with a job catering to a movie crew shooting a new interpretation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter. Just to add to the starry tension, an unexpected election is required which opens a whole new can of worms for the citizens of Aleford.Interesting but shallow dips into the behind-the-scenes action of both the film and the campaign with acceptance and rejection by John Dunne of Faith's detective abilities.Enjoyable read but not one of my favorites in the Faith Fairchild series.
—Kathy Davie
