The second in the movie series was second in a series of it's own. Love and Murder was based on the Gail Bowen novel Murder at the Mendel, published in 1991. The heroine of the stories is widowed mother of three, Joanne Kilbourn. A recurring image throughout the movies is Joanne's memories of her late husband Ian Kilbourn (played in flashbacks by Matt Trueman), a Canadian politician beaten to death a few years earlier, who left her with three children -- daughter Mieka (Colombe Demers), and sons, Peter (Noah Shebib) and Angus (Callahan Connor), which expands to four when she adopts a young orphan named Taylor (Natasha La Force).
The first movie centers around Joanne's childhood friend Sally Love (played by British actress Caroline Goodall, probably most recognizable to North American viewers as Robin Williams' wife in Hook), and the complicated relationship that Joanne shares with the entire family. Sally is an artist accused of killing her former husband (Stuart), who was in hot water over showing her controversial art work in his gallery. By the end of the movie, both Sally and her ex-husband are dead, leaving behind an orphaned daughter that Joanne and her children welcome into their home.
The second movie follows Joanne's relationship with long-time friend, and her husband's former running partner, Andy Boychuk (Robert Hays). When a young girl named Lori Evanson (played by Kate Emme McIninch) is found murdered, the police (including Joanne's long-time friend and former partner on the force, Inspector Philip Millard [played by "Titanic"'s Victor Garber]) suspect Andy. Unfortunately, then Andy himself is murdered, and suspicion turns to his wife, Eve, who has been left with their handicapped son and Andy's stained reputation.
The order the stories appear in for CTV is a little different than the order the books are in, which changes a few things. Deadly Appeances is the second movie to air, but the first book to have been written, explaining why, in the second movie, Joanne is raising her friend Sally's daughter Taylor, even though in the book, Sally is still alive to raise her own daughter at that point. There are also new characters, in particular Victor Garber's Inspector Philip Millard. Kilbourn is a cop turned professor in the movies, but in the books, she was never a cop. It looks like Canadians will get to see more than two Kilbourn movies though -- there are at least four more books in the series that would make excellent movies, provided Wendy Crewson can supply the Kilbourn.
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