The Body in the Cast

Faith Fairchild, caterer and wife of a New England minister, finds herself catering for a Hollywood update of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter when a movie crew spends some weeks filming on location in Faith’s village of Alesford, Massachusetts. The mystery is divided between the hijinks and hysterics of the Hollywood crowd and a local election for selectman. The resolution beggars belief, and some of the writing about the actors, director and crew veers into the cliché. I hope the next book in the series, The Body in the Basement, represents a return to author Katherine Hall Page’s glory days.

The fifth installment in this clever cozy series is a bit more hackneyed than usual, but, a lackluster Faith Fairchild novel will show more still provide more fun than most of what else is out there. Still recommended. show less

An well-developed mystery featuring amateur sleuth, Faith Fairchild. This is the fifth in the series, but the first I have read. Although there are references to previous episodes, the story stands alone quite well.

Faith Fairchild, married to the local minister, mother of two pre-schoolers, runs a catering business "Have Faith." She is hired to provide food to the cast and crew of a big Hollywood movie being filmed in their small town outside of Boston. At the same time, the town is having an election with an unheard of three people running for one vacancy on the town select board. One of the candidates is royally detested by most people in town.

As the filming begins, bodies start turning up, discovered by Faith. Her black bean soup show more seems to be the culprit in a mass food poisoning that hits the entire crew. And everytime these incidents occur, filming must be delayed, and the director goes into a frenzy over his budget.

There is a cast of typical hollywood divas, under-appreciated crew members, spoiled children, all harboring enough secrets to keep NSA busy decoding for a year.

I enjoyed this book and will certainly look for at least one more in the series. Faith seems to be a tick above the standard amateur sleuth. She is helpful, thoughtful and quite intuitive, but does not strike off on her own, put herself in danger, or forget to involve the local police. show less

As THE BODY IN THE CAST opens, Faith Fairchild is back in Aleford, Mass. with her second child, baby Amy, safely born, and her catering business getting up and running again. It's a stroke of good fortune for her that an eccentric director has chosen Aleford as the location for his updated version of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and Faith gets the catering contract. Meanwhile, a local political race is keeping things humming among the townspeople. As misfortunes, some of them culinary, begin to bedevil the production, Faith must investigate to protect her business. Plot and subplot are woven together neatly, but not too neatly, and the character flaws of the villains lead to their undoing. I enjoyed the setting in a New England town show more which seemed very familiar, and the description of the film-making process rang true. I'm looking forward to more of Faith Fairchild's adventures. show less