The Movie-Town Murders

This is the fifth book in the series about FBI Art Crime Team agent Jason West and BAU Chief Sam Kennedy, and a really nice one.

Jason is working undercover on the death of a former senator's granddaughter, UCLA film studies professor. Police assume the professor committed suicide, but the family has doubts. And it doesn't help that no one seemed to like the disagreeable professor, and Jason quickly discovers that there is a reason. Jason mostly works on this alone. So if, like me, you were counting on him and Sam to handle the case together, you won't find it here.

But I like the general direction in which Jason and Sam are going when it comes to their relationship. After the previous book, I started to worry a little about them, but luckily, we can see some changes in this book, especially when it comes to Sam's behavior. I feel like they are finally starting to talk to each other and work on this relationship. In this book, it was much easier than in the previous one for me to see that they fit together.

The ending of this story made me really look forward to the next book and wonder what else will happen in this series. And not only about the threat to Jason, but also about the unsolved mysteries of Sam's past that we learn a little about in this book.

If you haven't read the previous books in this series, I would rather not recommend starting it with this book as you will lose a lot of context, especially when it comes to the story of Sam and Jason and the threat to Jason from Dr. Kyser.

For those who have read the previous books in this series, I recommend continuing. This is a very solid addition to this series.

THE MOVIE-TOWN MURDERS are another fantastic entry in Lanyon's Art of Murder series. After a long time away (relatively speaking), Sam and Jason are back. It was wonderful to see their relationship continue to progress, albeit with some bumps along the way, and Lanyon's research into film history and lost film was a treat. It was also a pleasure to see A SNOWBALL IN HELL referenced, another great book by this author. All around, a win!

Another delightful romantic mystery in one of my favorite longstanding mystery series! One of my favorite aspects of this series is how much we see the established relationship grow and shift over time. The opposites attract nature of their romance is often put under stressors between long distance and their jobs, which makes for a high stakes romance plot in many ways, in addition to the high stakes from the thriller plot. I do wish the stories in this series didn’t always end on cliffhangers since we often have to wait a bit between books, but that’s more of just a personal pet peeve of mine than a stylistic critique since I personally prefer to read series back to back whenever possible. Really looking forward to the next book!