DEATH AND THE FINAL CUT

A film crew comes to the hallowed city of Cambridge, England, bringing in its wake disruptions, secrets, lies, and murder.

The most notable feature of the team making Viking Bride is the number of failed actors it includes. One of them, Ernest Eastman, is producing the film. Another, Alain Vernon, is directing. Still another, Devon Ashleigh, is the prop master—or, as he prefers to be called, the properties director. All of these are upstaged by Agnes Dermont, the star, whose failure is in the present tense: “She was never a great actress, but she was turning into a terrible one.” The only reason Agnes, who’s pushing 50, was cast as the Viking bride is that she’s married to Alain Vernon, who’s clearly miscalculated badly in seeking to establish himself as a force in the industry by helming a vehicle for his over-the-hill wife. So Agnes’ fatal stabbing by a prop knife while she’s in full costume in Cambridge’s Round Church proves a stroke of luck for many participants who’d feared she’d sink the production. The most obvious beneficiary is Magritte Grimes, the bride’s younger sister, Agnes’ unofficial understudy, and the performer who should have been cast in the title role from the beginning. Cambridgeshire DCI Arthur St. Just, who’s looking forward to his wedding to crime novelist Portia De’Ath, questions the interested parties fully aware that they differ from the suspects in most of his investigations because they’re “such renowned, professional liars.” Soon enough, the obligatory jealousies, rivalries, hidden romances, and blackmail attempts rise to the surface, making everyone look guilty. But fans will have no trouble spotting the killer even before the seasoned St. Just.

A routine, professional whodunit providing yet more evidence that filmmaking is murder.