I’m not sure where to begin, but know there are some light spoilers below. The best way to sum it up is that this isn’t a Murder, She Wrote novel. It’s a spy thriller disguised as a MSW novel. It was decently written—for a generic spy novel—but not for Jessica Fletcher. Despite being attached to the Commerce Department on this adventure, Jess herself ironically has zero agency, as she’s strung along by governments and subversive operatives the whole time. Jessica’s “decisions” in this book are actually just the cleverly disguised machinations of secretive government men. Nothing gets answered, Jessica plays the role of begrudging patriot, and a friendly face in the form of George Sutherland conveniently makes an appearance in the end to put everyone at ease. It was just a bunch of moving around from place to place with very little worthwhile actually happening.
This is also the second …
