The film feels like one of those quick and easy reads you’d pick up at an airport bookstore on your way to your flight. But when you finally find your seat and excitedly crack open the book, it’s maybe a little too breezy as a page turner.

Director Stephen Shimek and screenwriter Mark Brennan don’t overexert themselves by any means with this cozy mystery that could have used a whole lot more fizz to it.

Whether the series continues from here is sort of an open question, but if it does, maybe the filmmakers can finally figure out a way to do justice to the character.

Murder at the Embassy plods through its lukewarm revelations. The central mystery has neither legs nor an interesting follow-through, and its low-key nature suffers from slow pacing.