Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Directors: Douglas Barr, Kevin Fair, Douglas Barr, Via Vision Entertainment.
Cast: Courtney Thorne-Smith, James Tupper, Martin Cummins, Adam DiMarco.
It was Arthur Conan Doyle who said: “The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes”.
If variety is the spice of life, then Emma Fielding fits the bill perfectly. The world is filled with many things we don’t know about, but that does not deter the leading archaeologist from her endeavours. Emma gets mixed up in all sorts of cases — as witnessed by this Hallmark movie.
There are three films in the Emma Fielding Mysteries Collection. The first is titled ‘Site Unseen’, followed by ‘Past Malice’ and ‘More Bitter Than Death’. All are engrossing.
Thorne-Smith (Melrose Place, Ally McBeal) plays the lead sleuth. In the first, Emma’s dedication is unquestioned: she gets involved in a murder investigation when she and her students unearth a dead body while searching for evidence of a 17th century coastal Maine settlement.
Regarded as a brilliant archaeologist, Fielding leads a group of students on a search for discovers evidence and digs up a lot more than she bargained for when a dead body, rivals seeking to trump her discovery and pressure from the university block her every move.
Her passion for this dig, and a personal motivation, sees her inserting herself into a murder investigation to uncover the killer’s identity — before she becomes the next victim.
Neil Armstrong said, “mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand”. That describes ‘Past Malice’, an eye-opener for when Emma gets called to consult on a state historical project.
When Emma discovers the body of another archeologist in a secret chamber beneath the castle, she calls in her friend, FBI agent Jim Conner, to help her sort out the evidence and determine whether the “Curse of the Chandlers” is real. It’s important not to stop questioning to satisfy your curiosity.
In the third film, ‘More Bitter Than Death’, the winter is turning out to be deadly for Emma Fielding as she tracks a killer in an old New Hampshire hotel.
The three-disc set is a stimulating mystery from real-life archaeologist Dana Cameron.
Who plays the character of Emma Fielding? If your answer is correct, you could win one of three DVDs of Emma Fielding Mysteries Collection. Entries should be sent to [email protected] by next Monday, 18 March 2019. Names of the winners will be announced in Frank Cassidy’s PS-sssst…! column next week.
