Death at the Diner: A Teagarden Mystery

The film opens with Aurora Teagarden, a librarian with a passion for true crime, celebrating her six-month anniversary with her boyfriend Daniel, a cook at the RNR Diner. Her mother, Aida, starts a new job at the Bleeker Collective real estate agency, owned by Kathleen Bleeker, who is dating the diner's owner, Emilio Torres. Tension rises at the diner when Emilio's estranged ex-wife Lauren and angry son Stephen confront him, and Emilio expresses deep concern over a new tax hike to his investor, Ben Powell. Later that night, Aurora returns to the diner to retrieve her phone and discovers Emilio's body; he has been stabbed in the back with Daniel's professional chef's knife. Detective Cook and Officer Arthur Smith find Daniel's fingerprints on the weapon, and when it is revealed that Emilio left the diner to Daniel in his will, Daniel is arrested for murder. Aurora refuses to believe Daniel is guilty and begins her own investigation, discovering small black beads at the crime scene that she initially links to Lauren's earrings. However, she soon finds a torn copy of a $30,000 check Emilio wrote to 'cash' just before his death. Aurora's investigation shifts toward Kathleen when she learns Kathleen is in deep debt and has been receiving secret flowers from a man she calls 'Casanova.' The mystery deepens when Daniel is attacked at the diner after his release, and Aurora spots Stephen fleeing the scene. The climax occurs at the real estate office, where Aurora and Aida realize that Ben Powell is the 'Casanova' who was obsessed with Kathleen and killed Emilio out of jealousy when he discovered the two were dating. Ben confesses to the murder, explaining he stabbed Emilio after the owner threatened to move his assets to protect them from Ben's control. Ben prepares to kill Aurora and Aida to cover his tracks, but Aida manages to knock him unconscious with a heavy object. The film concludes with Daniel being fully exonerated; however, he decides to leave Lawrenceton to find his own path in the culinary world, leaving Aurora to continue her life as a 'genius librarian' and amateur sleuth.