Sam wanders around from person to person and back again asking one or two questions but finding out virtually nothing. And she trusts Randy even though she knows he repeatedly lies. In fact he rarely tells the truth. She repeatedly puts her life in danger including confronting a thug twice as big as her late at night in her empty store.

Cassie is a great ADA. She doesn't even understand the evidence on her desk and she doesn't seem to do anything worthwhile except help Sam.

Philby gets Sam many of her clues and provides direction. It seems to be a mystery as to his background. Lucky he just happens to work at the store. Actually, he seems to be there all the time. Maybe the name of these movies should be Mystery Philby.

The prime suspect, with tons of evidence against him, freely talks to Sam who collected much of the evidence.

When they finally find the real murderer, the police cart him away on Sam's word with absolutely no explanation as to why he is guilty. And everyone, including Sam walks away from his car which supposedly has evidence in it.

Like the other movies in the series, the acting is passable. The story has a lot of weak points, but is mildly entertaining. Of the three Mystery Woman movies I've seen so far, this one seems to have the most weak points in the plot.

Famous mystery writer William Katt has moved to Kellie Martin's town and she's having a hard time in getting in touch with him to do a book signing at her mystery book store. That is until Jamie Elfman, complete stranger offers to help. He knows Katt from back in the day and if he gets Katt then can she help sell a mystery video game he has designed. Seems like a bargain.

Looks good too until Katt abruptly leaves the signing and is found dead with Elfman standing over him. Somehow and some way Martin just believes he didn't do it. Of course her rival and nemesis Chief Casey Sander believes Elfman is as guilty as sin.

One of the two weaknesses of this otherwise enjoyable TV movie is that there really is no reason for her to believe in Elfman. He's exposed time and again as a liar and conman. Martin should have walked away from him.

Of course there are other suspects including Sheree Wilson, Katt's estranged wife and their son A.J. Trauth. She's looking to make a big divorce settlement and is frustrated. Katt was not the most faithful of spouses.

Secondly though as it turns out Katt did invent the game as a sort of mind exercise. I'm not any kind of knowledgeable on this, but it would seem that if Katt invented it he would know all the possible outcomes and how would that be a mind exercise. A conundrum I could never quite grasp.

But for those two anomalies I would have rated this Mystery Woman film higher.

7/10 - always great to have Samantha Kinsey on the case