The fourth novel in the Monk Tie-In Novel series.
Adrian Monk and his assistant, Natalie Teeger, take Julie to the hospital after she breaks her wrist during a soccer game. Monk is stunned to see his old assistant, Sharona Fleming, working as a nurse. She explains that after leaving Monk's employ to re-marry her ex-husband, Trevor Howe, and move to New Jersey, a friend of Trevor's from Los Angeles who owned a landscaping business offered Trevor the business. Trevor bought the business and the family moved to Los Angeles. All was well until one of his clients, a UCLA professor, was beaten to death with a lamp in her house. Trevor has been accused of the murder, and Sharona has no trouble believing it, so she and Benjy have moved back up to San Francisco, with Benjy currently staying with Sharona's sister Gail.
Sharona doesn't hide the fact that she'd like her old job with Monk back, and before long there is open hostility between her and Natalie. To save her job, she works out a compromise: they will travel to Los Angeles so that Monk can see if Trevor is really guilty.
Tropes
- Bludgeoned to Death: Ellen Cole was killed by a blow to the head with a lamp.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Ian Ludlow had been previously mentioned in Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu, where Randy mentioned he was taking a mystery writing course taught by him during the police strike.
- Continuity Nod: Captain Mantooth and Joe Cochran, the Engine 28 firefighters whose dog's death Monk investigated in Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse, return.
- Ian Ludlow was mentioned by Randy as the teacher of a writing course he was attending during Mr Monk And The Blue Flu.
- Continuity Snarl: While the other novels contain details that largely keep them in line with the show canon, this one was pretty much rendered non-canon by season 8's "Mr. Monk and Sharona", where Sharona and Natalie meet for the first time, and Sharona confirms to have broken up with Trevor for good.
- Frame-Up: Ludlow always sets up the least likely person to take the fall for his murders. He even sets up Sharona for the murder Trevor was framed for, and Natalie for the Ronald Webster murder, for the sake of his own writing.
- Hated by All: Natalie describes E.L. Lancaster as "reviled".
- He Is Not My Boyfriend: Ludlow, in the middle of trying to frame Natalie, accuses her of killing a man because she's in love with Monk and wants to keep him to herself. Natalie immediately answers that she doesn't love Monk (though mentally she clarifies that she means romantic love).
- Laser-Guided Karma: The coach for the team playing against Julie's soccer team encourages his players to be brutal and does a Victory Dance with every goal. That dance allows Monk to figure out he is the killer of E.L. Lancaster.
- Life Imitates Art: In-Universe, it turns out that Ludlow orchestrates his murders like they were his mystery novels. He befriends someone for long enough to study the people in their life, then kills them. Then he drops an orgy of excessive clues left and right that are designed to frame the least likely suspect for the crime. And after that, he writes a book. This includes the murder Trevor was framed for, and the book he wrote that later inspired his murder of Ronald Webster. When Monk gets the evidence needed to catch him, he revels in pointing out that Ludlow, like his fictional killers, incriminated himself through a personality quirk of his. Namely, that he can't resist signing his own books whenever he goes into a bookstore that sells them. Monk connects him to the murder for which Natalie was framed because he signed books at three stores in San Francisco including one down the block from a pizzeria where Webster ate his last meal, all on a day when Ludlow purportedly claimed he was in Los Angeles.
- Morally Bankrupt Banker: One of these, the head of the mortgage division of a bank, is the Victim of the Week in the opening chapter.
- Mystery Writer Detective: Ian Ludlow has consulted on cases for the LAPD at least five times. As it turns out, he's also the killer.
- Only Known by Initials: We never learn what the E.L. in E.L. Lancaster's name stand for.
- Orgy of Evidence: One of the key mistakes Ludlow makes is claiming to have missed the "tiny piece of evidence you forgot" to Natalie and Sharona. After all, if anyone is going to be smart about not leaving clues behind, it's two people who worked for a detective utterly obsessed with details.
- Series Continuity Error: Trevor Howe is erroneously referred to as 'Trevor Fleming', while Benjy's name is spelled with an 'i' instead of a 'y'.
- Strictly Formula: While reading Ludlow's books, Monk quickly realizes that Ludlow's imagination is kinda dry in that his books all seem to have the same formula as far as the suspects go and how they're undone.Adrian Monk: [opens Names Are For Tombstones] The beekeeper did it. [Monk puts that down and picks up another one, Death Works Weekends, reads a few pages, then shuts it] The matador did it. [He picks up Death is the Last Word, reads a few pages, then closes it] The massage therapist did it.
Natalie Teeger: You only glanced at the first couple of pages.
Adrian Monk: Ludlow is so heavy-handed he might as well reveal the killer on the cover. The murderer always has a personality quirk that is his or her undoing.
Natalie Teeger: How would you know? You haven't read to the end of any of his books. [Monk picks up one book and quickly flips through it]
Adrian Monk: The massage therapist is claustrophobic, so she opened the windows at the crime scene. That's how Detective Marshak knew it was her.
Natalie Teeger: Thanks for ruining the books for me.
Adrian Monk: They were lousy anyway. You live more interesting mysteries than Ludlow can make up.
Natalie Teeger: Those are work. These would have been for enjoyment.
Adrian Monk: What's enjoyable about reading some contrived mystery where the killer is always the least obvious person who is caught the same way every time?
Natalie Teeger: Nothing anymore. I can never read an Ian Ludlow book again.- It turns out that the reason Ludlow's bookwriting has become so formulaic is because, in a desperate need for new book material, he's turned to committing murders himself and acting like the very killers he writes about in his books.
- Stylistic Suck: We never see any of Ludlow's work, but seeing as how they're written in 90 days each, and one woman says Ludlow describes every woman in them starting with their chest size, it seems Ludlow does not have much talent.
- Victory Dance: The coach of the soccer team playing against Julie's does this whenever his players score a goal. It ends up biting him in the ass when Adrian realizes the steps he does in it match up with the bloody footprints left at the scene of a murder.
