Recommendsday: Mysteries set on film sets

A few weeks back I wrote about the 18th Royal Spyness mystery, which featured a movie being filmed at Georgie’s house, and that got me thinking about other mystery books that are set on or around movie sets.

Of course the most recent one that I’ve read is the latest Daniel Clement mystery, A Death on Location. This sees a movie crew take over Champton to film a historical epic and many of the locals sign up to appear as supporting artists – aka extras. But when one of them dies after filming a ball scene Daniel finds himself caught up in another murder investigation with Neil. I actually had the culprit for this one spotted early doors, but not the reason why so I enjoyed finding out the why of it all (and if I was right obviously). I continue to find this series very readable, but I’m not sure how many more scenarios Richard Coles will be able to come up to put Daniel in the way of bodies!

Going back to May, I read A Knife to Remember by Jill Churchill, which is the fifth book in the Jane Jeffries series, which is a 1990s written series. In this there’s a crew filming in the field behind Jane’s house and is using her backyard as part of the behind the scenes. The visitors seem to be riven with rivalries and then the set designer is found murdered and it goes from there. I really like this series, they are very easy reads and shorter than the average cozy these days which always leaves me wanting more. Unlike the Goldy Schulz series, these don’t seem to have been picked up for Kindle, so I’m having to resort to the second hand sellers to try and get some more at reasonable prices.

The fourth Flavia De Luce I am Half Sick of Shadows sees Flavia’s home invaded by a film crew in the run up to Christmas, and a snow storm trapping villagers there too. Flavia ends up investigating the death of one of the film contingent as well as whether Father Christmas really exists. I had a few moments with the early Flavia books, and I also read them out of order which I don’t think helped, but Flavia in this one is an engaging mix of innocence and omnipotence which works really well.

I’m sure there are more that I can’t remember at the moment, but that’s ok – I can always do a second post!