Perfect cast and a good story

good back-story, and good acting

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Samantha is played by Kellie Martin a woman who owns "The Mystery Woman Book". She investigates and is interested in law and enforcement. She found out she was adopted and is going to a town she thinks her mother lives. She drives to that town is kind of afraid and stays outside the house for about an hour before she goes in. As her "mother" Hannah opens the door she recognizes Sam and tells her to leave.Inside the house is a dead man killed by a gun shot wound and Samantha's birth mother Hannah is arrested. Sam meets her half sister who does not know about her. Sam makes out she is someone else.There is a lot of drama in this movie. Philby, played by Clarence Williams III is an excellent actor. He plays Sam's all around man with a lot of computer and police knowledge in the book store.There are a lot of criminals in this. Insurance fraud agents, people who work in offices and pass personal information because they are being blackmailed and more.I had a problem with this movie. Sam has to watch her half sister, her mother and her step father support each other in love and she is at a standstill having to hold her identity while her family shares love and is not included. She helps her mother get out of jail and finds the killer of the man in the house.It has some good parts Sam and Philby are successful with what they start out to do but to watch a girl not being acknowledged in love by her mom is so sad.

I was tootling around stations one night, and saw these "Mystery Women" movies on the Hallmark HD station. So, being a fan of mysteries, and needing something that I knew would be "cozy," I recorded this one and another. I even stuck around long enough to try to start this one, but...I can't imagine tuning these in on purpose.All of the most fundamental dreadful movie-making things happen here. Other posters have pointed out that the plot points happen utterly irrationally. e.g., the heroine deciding in the space of five minutes that she just HAS TO go find her birth-mother. (No mention of Dad, by the way). She and her ditz lawyer friend dig up Mum's location in less time that it takes me to write this review- -utterly daft--and off she goes. She leaves her majordomo ex-spy, ex-spook, ex-commando, hacker, genius, etc., guy, Clarence Williams III, in charge of her store, and off she goes. She of course finds good old mum in minutes, and, of course--Mum's just being arrested for ...MURDER.The things that happen that are just cringe-worthy are things hardly related to the bad plotting. Extras walk, extra-slow, through every scene. (Can't afford enough extras to populate the town, so, those we DO have--walk slowly!) It's painful to watch--like those awful, self-conscious 8th Grade plays that your untalented kid put on for your cringing entertainment. The heroine apparently NEVER works in her own store; she closes it constantly, or leaves it to Mr. Spy-versus-Spy to run. The idea that this guy would work, for HER, is simply laughable. She plays a 22, 24 year-old like "girl," when she's obviously nearer to 40. Little baby-doll tops, goofy pants...geeze. There's the ubiquitous police chief, who doesn't ARREST her for meddling, or being at the scene of EVERY murder in town; he gives her an obligatory half-hearted lecture each time, and that's it. She has the usual, "I'm going to stick my nose in here and nobody is going to punch me in it, or tell me to bugger off, like real people would" thing going on, and she's not REMOTELY as believable as Jessica Fletcher--that should tell you something.The DA BFF is just...annoying. She passed law school? In what universe? The universal law school of Ditzery? She dresses like an underpaid weather girl on the smallest local station in the US--her clothes look like Walmart castoffs. AND...no brains demo'ed here at all.It's just AWFUL. I used to think that the SciFi channel had dreadful movies, but this caps the pile. Even more so than the "Woman in Jeopardy of the Week" Lifetime Movies, which I tried a few times and then gave up as simply unwatchably bad. Now this station is apparently where TV actresses who have outgrown any possible real network or movie success go to act out their years. Yes, this movie had the aforementioned Clarence Williams and the guy who played Pete, from the Mod Squad, reunite. At least those two didn't look like they were cut from cardboard, stiffly walking in uber-slow baby steps across the screen.Just...DREADFUL. I'm surprised that there is more than one of these. REALLY surprised. You gotta have mighty low standards to watch this through. *MIGHTY LOW.*

Contrary to another review, just because a storyline seems meaningless, doesn't mean it is.Most good stories have at least one subplot. In this episode the subplot provided some comic relief to an otherwise very serious episode. I was in stitches!The fact that it reunited a couple of dear old friends made it much more special - especially to us fans of The Mod Squad. Because The Mod Squad was a very serious show. To have it's two male stars (Clarence Williams III as series regular Philby, and Michael Cole as Desmond) in a more comical situation was a treat to me!In this episode, while Samantha is off looking for her birth mother, a silly, but fun little subplot has a couple of old spies (Philby & Desmond) get together to free a Russian spy who landed in the local jail.Philby decides to get himself arrested, so he can tell the Russian spy how he's going to be busted out.It's the 'how' that is hysterical. The police chief, who has a semi-adversarial relationship with Samantha and Philby, is befuddled when he has to arrest Philby for breaking a window.Desmond then, comes in 'under cover' to help break both Philby & the Russian spy out of jail. What ensues is like The Keystone Cops. It is hysterical, and so much fun!

A date with a doctor and an offhand comment about the health of her parents, sees Kellie reveal to Cassie that she was adopted and suddenly now wants to find her real mother. She follows up a few leads and gets an address but, on arriving at the house of the woman she believes is her mother, she finds her standing over a dead body. Kellie pretends to the police that she was soliciting for donations and they happily accept this despite all the obvious flaws in that alibi. As her "mother" Hannah is taken away as the main suspect, Kellie stays to help. Meanwhile, back at the bookstore, Philby's quiet time alone is ruined when a man from his past turns up.So with a shoe horn the size of a canoe, Kellie is set up with a new mystery to try and solve. There is a slight insult to the audience's intelligence by having her suddenly announce her revelation, brush away a tear, suddenly decide to track her down and, after doing it surprisingly easily, she just happens to have turned up minutes after a murder has occurred, but I suppose with daytime TV you can never overestimate the audience's intelligence. So off we go on the usual superficial mystery that never aspires to be more than daytime filler. It drifts forward with unsurprising and dull "twists" and revelations in the plot and the main thing I felt was boredom. This isn't helped by the stupid mood music played throughout as well.It isn't like the mystery is even enough to fill the film, because we are also treated to a pointless subplot that runs throughout the film that just seems to exist to give Philby and Connors something to do. Done well the two threads would have the film bulging and it is telling that even with them both it is still baggy and boring. The cast don't help much. Martin is cute but that's about it. Siemaszko continue her trend of doing very little while Williams yet again takes his paycheque for strolling round in the background being all mysterious about his past. Harrold is OK but Lakin looks like an actresses keen to make the most of her opportunity and forces it throughout. Sander also does his usual charisma-free turn to no good effect while Podell is smarmy to the point where my stomach churned.Overall then a dull and boring Mystery Woman film; and I say that as someone who has found some of the other films OK. The main mystery isn't much cop, while the subplot is pointless. Die-hard fans might like it but even for the casual daytime TV viewer this is pretty weak.