Aurora Teagarden Mysteries: How to Con a Con

Mrs. Shullivan and I enjoy guessing who is the guilty suspect(s) in any good murder/mystery movie and this episode did not disappoint by providing us with a smorgasbord of potential villains/suspects. Aurora Teagarden (Candace Cameron Bure) is at her best as the inquisitive librarian/mystery sleuth supported by her newspaper reporter friend Sally Allison (Lexa Doig) as they sift through oodles and oodles of potential suspects even as their friends and/or family members are placed in dangerous situations at the hands of the villains.

There appears to be some similarities between murders that were committed three years apart with a cord for strangling the victims still present around their necks. Similar to a scrumptious buffet table, you could almost see Aurora Teagarden salivating to get involved and get to the bottom of this mystery.

It's light and fun entertainment. Don't consider this series to be thrillers but more like romantic adventures and you won't be disappointed. I give it a decent 7 out of 10 IMDB rating.

Waiter, we would like another serving of another episode of Aurora Teagarden please. Coming right up! Hopefully before year end 2021)

I enjoy these movies but it makes me wonder...why would anyone want Aurora Teagarden as a girlfriend?

Nick is constantly in physical fights with the villains in these movies. Maybe as a professor, he enjoys this? Maybe not.

My thought is always this: one day they are both going to get killed by bad guys because they constantly put themselves in danger because of Roe's macabre obsession.

Sally has already been injured and left unconscious in a driveway in one movie and her mother was strangled and left for dead in this one.

When will enough be enough for Roe?

Ro (Candace Cameron Bure) and Nick (Niall Matter) press pause on their wedding planning when Aida (Marilu Henner), Ro's mother and Lawrenceton's best real estate agent, stumbles upon a murder. Her clients, Ben and Bianca Avery (David Lewis and Sarah Jane Redmond), are preparing a move but discover an outstanding $500k loan on their house. Neither seems to know anything about it, and soon after Ben starts looking into the matter, he ends up strangled to death on his living room floor.

Despite the over-convoluted mystery, and the story dragging a little, it's a fairly fun Aurora Teagarden mystery which features identity theft and a killer who likes to strangle his victims with a wire. It's very hard not to be charmed with this series, though, here, Lexa Doig isn't too whiny, which is a letdown. Love her moany character. Her character is the best and her and Roe work well together.

Cake tasting, 120 guests, and the big day looming Ro and Nick get embroiled in catching a con artist in "how to con a con" after one of Aida's clients ends up murdered. The con...get trusting clients to give up valuable information like social security numbers and then use the information to falsify documents like titles and borrow against their value.

Another great entry in the Aurora Teagarden Mystery series on Hallmark (one of my three favorite Hallmark series along with Hannah Swensen's Murder she Baked and Mystery 101). Wedding planning for Ro and Nick is intertwined with the Real Murders Club sleuthing to solve this mystery. Cue the murder board, which seems to be a mainstay in these Cody mystery dramas.

"The wedding should be about us, not our guests."-Nick

Philip helps Arthur with some police research, which puts him in the perfect location to hear police updates on the case that he is then able to share with the Real Murders Club. A trust-fund kid who lies about their Dad being alive, alibis that don't check out, and a murdered/dead man paying a bogus loan. Two murders both by strangulation with a cord...and the plot thickens.

I enjoyed the parallel scene with Lynne and the police reading the police report of the murder while the Real Murders Club reads a reporter's article about the crime. Fake name-fake loan. Aida may have the key to the mystery with the loan documents...something that lands Aida in the hospital and helps Aurora figure out what she really wants for her wedding.

"Ro and I have a theory"-Nick "oh! Have pigs begun to fly?"-Lynne

I have enjoyed every entry in this series and this is no exception. The characters are really well developed and the team is really tight. This is still a must see on my list.

6/10 - one of the more forgettable entries in the long-running mystery series, but good enough for the hour and 20 minutes spent watching.