MURDER, SHE WROTE Manhattans & Murder

Maintaining the charming fiction that Jessica Fletcher is a real person, Bain offers a first-person tale set primarily in New York City. When Jessica arrives in the city of millions, she instantly encounters someone from Cabot Cove who is trying to hide out. Quite a coincidence. No doubt Beth Porter was selected as the reader because she can, and does, sound just like Angela Lansbury. When various walk-ons speak, she changes her accent and intonations satisfactorily for purposes of character delineation. One feels obliged to mention that her Maine accent is just as abominable as the TV show's. But the star of the show, the insufferable Jessica, comes across in all her didactic glory. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/NOV 00]