In the previous book in this series of original
novels based on the television series "Monk," the
obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk learns that Dr. Kroger plans to
attend a conference in Germany. The idea of not having his three sessions a
week with the doctor is overwhelming to Monk so, as his indispensable assistant
Natalie Teeger explains in Mr. Monk is Miserable, "in an act of
desperation and insanity that will probably go down in the annals of stalking
history, Monk decided to follow his psychiatrist to Germany." This, of
course, led to him solving a couple of murders and nearly getting himself and
Natalie killed in the process.
Determined to make a real vacation out of the
trip, and because Paris, to which she has a sentimental attachment, isn't that
far away, Natalie blackmails Monk into making a trip there. The flight is
comical for the reader, if not for Natalie and the other passengers—especially
the one who is murdered, "It's always murder. Nobody dies of natural
causes around Adrian Monk." Monk solves it, of course (in the novels there
are always some murders unrelated to the primary one for Monk to solve in passing),
and upon landing earns the respect and admiration of Chief Inspector Le Roux
and his assistant, Inspector Gadois.
In Paris, Natalie and Monk do a lot of
sightseeing, Monk often making a nuisance of himself in the course of things.
But he stuns Natalie when he tells her he wants to visit the city's famous sewers. This is the man
who, after all, is "afraid of germs, splinters, coloring books, mixed
nuts, lint, curly hair, sleeveless T-shirts, balls of yarn, dust bunnies, Neil
Diamond, bird droppings, untucked shirts, granola, Chia Pets, and so many other
things that he's created a list of his phobias that spans several leather-bound
volumes with footnotes, historical references, photographs, diagrams, and a
detailed index." The visit, which is not uneventful, prompts Natalie to
take him for a visit to the catacombs beneath the city.
The catacombs have served for several centuries
as a crypt for millions of bodies and have become a tourist attraction. Its
passageways are lined with walls of different types of bones. It takes an
Adrian Monk to spot, amidst thousands of others, the one skull that is out of
place because the fillings in its teeth are only a decade or so old. And, of
course, the man was murdered. An angry and frustrated Natalie knows her
vacation has ended and Monk's has just begun.
Nevertheless, she is determined to participate in
more of the many delights Paris has to offer, and to that end makes a dinner
reservation at Toujours Nuit, a restaurant she read about back in the States, a
restaurant that provides a unique and sensual dining experience she can't tell
Monk about in advance lest he refuse to go. Shortly after they are seated, they
are joined by a woman named Sandrine who is there unescorted. It is not long
before she quietly tells Monk, "I know who you found." It is not long
after this that dinner ends with a thunk: Sandrine's lifeless but not knifeless
body hitting the floor.
Added to the need to determine the identity of
the murder victim from the catacombs and an investigation of the circumstances
that led to his death, suddenly Adrian Monk has an impossible murder, complete
with locked-room conundrum, on his hands.
What makes it impossible? About this and other
story factors I've been deliberately vague so as not to spoil the experience
for readers. I must add, however, that any veteran reader/viewer of
mystery/suspense/thriller stories will know immediately how one aspect of the
"impossibility" was effected and thus subsequently have no trouble
identifying the culprit the moment a particular item is mentioned. In this
regard the book is no competition for the bafflers of John Dickson Carr, Hake
Talbot, Clayton Rawson or Edward D. Hoch, among others.
Readers who are detective story purists, as well
as those who are not fans of or who have never seen the television series,
might complain, and not unjustly, that there are too many
"travelogue" passages in Mr. Monk is Miserable that slow the story
and detract from the investigative portions. Since I have always loved the
program and have enjoyed the previous books in the series, I barreled through
this one, occasionally chuckling out loud at Monk's antics, of which there are
many, and did not find the aforementioned passages objectionable.
As usual, Lee Goldberg does an outstanding job of
capturing the voices and intonations of the recurrent characters. I can hear
Traylor Howard as Natalie in both narrative and dialogue, and in dialogue Tony
Shaloub as Monk, Ted Levine as Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, and Jason
Gray-Stanford as Lieutenant Randy Disher.
It is far from the best in the series, but I give
Goldberg points for attempting a less-than-stellar impossible crime story while
providing a mystery that can stand alongside some of the works of Jonathan
Latimer, Craig Rice, and Donald E. Westlake for its comedic value.
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Barry Ergang ©2013, 2024
Some of Derringer
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