The Uncaught by JB Fletcher

Thanks to auktionhaus-stahl.de

Title: The Uncaught

Author: JB Fletcher 

Publisher: Ted Hartley 

Source: TV Series Murder She Wrote S10 E9 Murder at a Discount 

I put a lot of the fictional books by Jessica Fletcher in the post The Corpse Danced at Midnight. However, here’s another of Jessica’s books that we learn more about than most.

In The Uncaught (interesting title), Jessica writes about the murder of a woman whose husband was tried for her murder, but acquitted for lack of evidence. The hardback edition has been on the bestseller list for nine months, and as we join the story, the paperback edition is due out soon.

Dave Navarro, who five years ago was tried and acquitted of the murder of his first wife Janet, is sure that Jessica has written about his case, and because her version finds his character guilty, he sues her for millions. Dave has married again, but we are not sure if he knows his second wife Iris is about to leave him. It doesn’t stop Iris attacking Jessica in a fancy restaurant. Both Dave and Iris are being pursued relentlessly by trashy papers and magazines; these days I dare say it would be podcasters. They claim Jessica has ruined their lives.

This is all a bit odd, because The Uncaught, as I say, has been a bestseller for nine months. How come all this furore didn’t start up when it was first published?

Anyway, quite uncharacteristically, it appears that Jessica never heard about the real case. She wrote the book in Cabot Cove and didn’t see the New York papers that must have reported it. But unfortunately for her, a lot of the details in her book are very similar to the actual murder, she even wrote about the wife’s car being dumped in a reservoir, so it looks as though she must have known about it. Perhaps the lawsuit might have merit?

Eventually Dave actually sits down and reads The Uncaught (it seems he had heard about it and leapt into litigation mode without bothering to find out what JB Fletcher actually had to say about the murder) and is inspired to telephone Jessica (it’s the 90s) to discuss calling off the lawsuit because he thinks he’s worked out who the real murderer is. On his way to see her, he is murdered.

Jessica finds out where Dave had got to in her book that had made him think again (p247). She has her own ideas about who committed the murder and you can see it’s complicated. Unfortunately, Dave’s lawyer is his daughter Rachel, a somewhat hard young woman, who won’t give up the case unless she is shown absolute proof that Jessica didn’t steal her family’s story.

There’s also a subplot about a really ugly diamond necklace which was substituted with one exactly the same only paste (Jessica uses valuable stamps in her book). I have lost count of the plots I have read in books and seen on TV or film where characters, from Sherlock Holmes to Murder She Wrote, are portrayed as rushing off to a jeweller and in about five minutes coming away with an exact copy of a precious jewel. Sometimes without the jeweller even seeing the original. I really can’t see any of my local jewellers agreeing to copy a lavish diamond necklace out of the blue. Not that I own a lavish necklace of any kind, you understand.

In a slightly later episode of Murder She Wrote, S10 E12, Jessica appears on a TV cooking show. She and bad tempered, shouty Chef Bernardo Bonelli cook a recipe from The Uncaught: Lamb and Vegetable Risotto. That’s interesting. I don’t recall any of Jessica’s other books featuring recipes. And this recipe doesn’t sound very Italian. Obviously Chef Bernardo is stabbed to death almost at once. Because Murder She Wrote. But that’s another story.

Thanks to Roseberys London