Monk's next case finds him when the witnesses against Bob Sebes, a scammer who defrauded thousands of people of their life savings begin to die one by one. However, the problem promises to be a thorny one, given that Monk had invested in the scam, leaving him flat broke, that Sebes is under house arrest with a tracking bracelet around his ankle and that Monk has been laid off as a police consultant in light of recent budget problems.
This book includes examples of the following tropes:
- Absence of Evidence: Inverted; Monk proves Lincoln Clovis was murdered and did not commit suicide by jumping off his second floor balcony to hang himself with a rope from his boat, because of wood splinters lodged in his body that indicate he was rolled over the railing while unconscious, instead of jumping while breathing.
- Chekhov's Gun: The poor condition of Bob Sebes' feet. Monk eventually realizes this is because he's been forcing his feet into women's high-heeled shoes to leave the house disguised as his wife.
- Defeating the Undefeatable: Monk suspects that Bob Sebes - an investor recently exposed as running a Ponzi scheme - killed three government witnesses who were supposed to testify against him, except that Sebes is under house arrest and wears a foolproof tracker that goes off whenever he leaves his house. His attempts to get to Sebes are not well helped by the fact that he's been laid off as a consultant.
- Dirty Cop: A CSI tech known only as Pillsbury Pete commits the opening subplot murder.
- Disability Alibi: Anna's arthritis makes it impossible for her to have committed the murders.
- Disguised in Drag: Bob Sebes was able to commit the murders by sneaking out disguised as his wife.
- Expy: Bob Sebes, accused of running a massive Ponzi scheme, is an Expy of Bernard Madoff.
- Fake Alibi: Bob has a foolproof tracking device strapped to him, although he found a way to duplicate the transmission and hide his own device's, allowing him to leave undetected with it. He also wore a costume of his wife, causing a large number of witnesses to say they never saw him leaving the house even though he did in front of them.
- Financial Test of Friendship: Monk loses all of his savings in a massive Ponzi scam at the same time as being laid off by the police department, meaning he's unable to afford Natalie's services. While Natalie admits that at some point she may have to leave Monk to fend for himself due to needing to support herself and her daughter, she tries multiple times to get herself and Monk employed somewhere else and quits more than one job in solidarity after her former boss/friend gets fired.
- Fun with Palindromes: Taken to the point of having theme naming, with Monk losing his savings to a Ponzi scheme that looked like a great idea. The scheme was masterminded by Bob Sebes, an Expy of Bernard Madoff, who defrauded investors with his Reinier Investment Fund. Oh, and Bob's wife's name is Anna.
- Locked Room Mystery: In a sense, the opening murder. A white collar criminal is found strangled to death in his car while being escorted to the court. No-one saw the car being opened, and Stottlemeyer and Randy were looking right at the car. It turns out the killer was a CSI tech who hid in a compartment of the car and got out when enough techs were around to cover his entrance.
- Skewed Priorities: Subverted. When Monk gets fired from a convenience store the day he convicts a husband of trying to murder his wife, Natalie chews the employer out for focusing on Monk upsetting his customers rather than saving a woman's life. It turns out Monk was actually fired for his habit of trying to make the money totals even.
- Theme Naming: The common theme appears to be palindromes. Bob Sebes, a wife named Anna, a Reinier Investment Fund? That's three palindromes right there.
