Murder, She Baked: A Deadly Recipe

Things are heating up in the little town of Lake Eden, and Hannah (Alison Sweeney) is caught in the middle. Sheriff Grant (Ty Olsson) is up for reelection, and Hannah's brother-in-law, Bill Todd (Toby Levins), is running against him. This is causing quite a bit of friction in the department. While no one likes Grant, he is throwing his weight around and making people more miserable than normal.

Hannah finds herself involved in yet another murder when the sheriff is found dead in the street, her brother-in-law deputy (who was running against the sheriff in the upcoming election) is accused, and a killer is on the loose.

Detective Mike Kingston can be annoying with his repetitive "Hannah, let me do my job! I got this! Don't get involved!", and he knows she isn't going to listen. It's not long before she starts snooping and comes up with the goods. It's cheesy ( I love cheesiness) but fun. If you're looking for something full of overt darkness and cynical world views and realistic police procedurals, then this isn't for you. If you want something light frothy, engaging and enjoyable, then look no further.

Allison Sweeney and Cameron Mathison star in "Murder, She Baked: A Deadly Recipe" on Hallmark channel. In this mystery series, Sweeney plays Hannah Swenson, who owns a bakery, The Cookie Jar, in Lake Eden, Minnesota, and she has a penchant for solving mysteries.

This time, it's the town sheriff who has been murdered, and his deputy, Hannah's brother-in-law, is a suspect.

Hannah gets to work trying to clear her brother-in-law, but as she does so, she finds herself in danger.

All My Children's Cameron Mathison plays Mike, a police officer, who is crazy about Hannah. He has some competition, but it looks like he's winning.

This was slow, but okay, with decent acting. The leads are pleasant. One thing I noticed was that not everyone had a Hollywood figure - I guess it was the bakery influence. It's a good influence.

For trivia buffs, the director is Kristoffer Tabori, a former actor who is the son of Viveca Lindfors and Don Siegel. Viveca had a stage and film career, and Don Siegel? He directed the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The series is enjoyable if not believable. It's fun, fluff mystery. I don't expect it to be cerebral or realistic. I like most of the characters even if their relationships are childish and shallow. My only real concern is that the two actors portraying the competing love interests look so much alike that I can't tell who she's with sometimes. I actually thought they might be the same actor or actually twins. Casting could have done a better job with that.

There is a huge mistake about how the car thieves stole the cars. They didn't have the keyless system, they used a slim Jim to gain access. Also, the alarm would go off if the door is opened without having the key they came with the car. Another thing, it doesn't matter if they used the access point to override anything, you can't use another key to start the car. Whoever wrote the story line needs to do better research for the movies.

These "Murder, She Baked" series of movies will never be mistaken for great movies but they are entertaining, partly because they have to be complete by 85 minutes so there isn't any dragging.

Plus Alison Sweeney, who plays baker Hannah Swensen, is very attractive and very personable. As in the others there is a murder mystery to be solved but that never really takes the focus off the real meat of these movies. Whether Hannah will end up with Mike the Cop or with Norman the Dentist.

In this one Hannah is putting together a book of recipes and part of her mission is to figure out what the "secret ingredient" is in one of them. In the process she also helps figure out who is responsible for the brick to the back of the head of the Sheriff on the eve of the election. There is also a red herring of sorts when a series of car thefts occur. Or was that just part of the Sheriff's re-election effort? The resolution gets a bit complicated, but once again Mike finds that Hannah is helpful in solving the mystery.

We found a set of two DVDs at our public library that contains five of the "Murder, She Baked" movies. We are watching all of them at home.