It is almost a given for me now, that if I go away on a trip, I take an Adrian Monk mystery with me. When luggage space is tight you want to take books, you are likely to enjoy. I also find that because I really like the characters in this series, the mysteries are easy to get into, which is a big plus when you’re in a distractable environment such as a train. Here are my thoughts on my latest read from this series…
Synopsis
‘Leland Stottlemeyer is used to obsessive-compulsive genius Adrian Monk getting all the praise and attention. But the police captain is feeling a little hostile after taking a lot of ribbing about his reliance on his star consultant. Is it possible he’s used the latest round of budget cuts to cut Monk loose? When Stottlemeyer is framed for the murder of another cop, only one detective in San Francisco can save him.’
Overall Thoughts
Natalie Teeger, the series narrator, brings new readers up to speed in the first chapter, a regular feature of the books. But this time the author uses Natalie’s existential crisis as a vehicle for doing this, beginning with her articulating her feelings about not knowing or having found herself:
‘I guess it’s because I’m not doing something that I always dreamed of doing or that feels like the perfect expression of who I am and my natural talents, not that I have a clue what they might be.’
Her lack of self-assurance contrasts with her boss and friend Adrian Monk:
‘Early in his life, he longed to be an inspector for the California State department of weights and measures, but that soon changed. As early as grade school, he exhibited an amazing knack for solving little mysteries, like who stole the money from the bake sale or who was responsible for vandalising a locker […] To him a mystery is a form of chaos, a mess that has to be cleaned up or an imbalance that has to be corrected. It’s his uncontrollable need to literally straighten up, to put things back where they belong, that enables him to see the little details everyone else misses and solve the crimes that boggle everybody else. Justice isn’t a philosophical, moral, or ethical ideal for him. It’s a balance that must be maintained. In a way, he became an inspector of weights and measures.’
Another, even bigger theme of the novel, is the toll of Monk’s success on Captain Stottlemeyer and his team. The way Monk easily solves case after baffling case makes them look bad and this is not something I had thought much about before. The cost to reputation that Monk has on Captain Stottlemeyer becomes intensified when the pair are interviewed at the conference of Metropolitan Homicide Detectives. The interview topic is the high success rate in solving murders, the captain’s department has, and naturally this brings out Monk’s key role in this. It doesn’t help that the moderator of the interview has an axe to grind with the captain. I found this to be an interesting new source of friction in the series, not least because of how badly the interview goes and how in turn this feeds into the captain being framed later in the book.
I think this instalment in the series encourages greater sympathy for the captain, especially when we are reminded of one of the main reasons for him hiring Adrian Monk as a consultant in the first place:
‘Stottlemeyer hired him as a consultant to save Monk from a life of isolation and misery. It was a wonderful act of friendship and kindness, and probably cost the captain whatever political capital he’d saved up during his career. So it infuriated me to see what he did for Monk used as a weapon against him.’
Once Monk has been let go as a consultant for the captain’s department, due to budget cuts, he goes to work for a private detection company. It is a very swish and flashy enterprise, with extensive employee benefits, yet the reader is soon wondering where the catch is. Surely, it is too good to be true? I found it entertaining to watch Monk working in the private sector, however, it quickly brings up certain problems. One of these is the way his boss exploits Monk’s compulsion to solve cases, meaning he ends up overworked. Whilst another is the ethical dilemmas working in the private sector brings. Not every client wants the truth brought out into the light.
In comparison to some of the previous books in the series, Mr Monk and the Dirty Cop has a very episodic structure, with many a murder being solved in various smaller cases. The “main” murder for which the captain is arrested does not occur until page 174, so quite late in the day. However, I like how the author is not afraid to hold back the big event and I also think they do it very well. The reader is not bored in the runup, and the many smaller episodes of the plot knit well together at the end. I did manage to identify the overall culprit, mainly due to noticing their role in the story. This is perhaps more likely as I have read quite a few books from the series this year.
I have another trip next week (Bodies from the Library conference) so I have a sneaky feeling I might be reading another Adrian Monk book pretty soon!
Rating: 4.25/5