Jessica Fletcher is my hero

I’m very late to the Murder, She Wrote party, but now that LeAnn and I are watching the show, I realize what a wonderful character Jessica Fletcher is. Wise in the ways of the world, kind to everyone she meets, and filled with empathy for all. Her previous career as a high school teacher and her upbringing as a Mainer both come out in her down-to-earth manner.

Like all great detectives, she’s curious, always asking questions, fearless once she’s on the case in pursuing leads wherever they take her, and relentless in investigating.

She’s also persistent in her writing, always working on the next book, wishing she could focus more on her writing and less on the promotion side, but happy to give a talk on a TV show, or a school library, or wherever she’s asked to speak.

She’s charming in a straight-forward way, and relates to everyone, especially working class people. In Murder to a Jazz Beat, she becomes friends with the taxi driver who picks her up at the airport, Lafayette, played engagingly by Garrett Morris, he helps provide knowledge of the music and food scene in New Orleans. They have a great rapport, which is typical of the friends Jessica makes.

Even when Jessica loses her temper, almost always justified, she regains her composure quickly.

Murder, She Wrote, is a comedy mystery, to me at least. True, it’s a bit of a stretch that the police almost always defer to her in solving the crime, but that’s the “suspension of disbelief” we viewers willingly make with the show, because it’s so much fun to watch our hero tackle crime and restore order.

To me, she’s an archetypical cozy mystery hero, filled with hope, a sense of adventure, intellectual daring, and a drive to find the murderer, not stopping until she does.

The best kind of amateur sleuth.