There is a lot of change in this next instalment of the Adrian Monk mysteries, as not only do Adrian and his assistant Natalie have to travel to New Jersey to solve a perplexing murder, but there is also the return of two longstanding characters from the TV series, Randy Disher and Sharona Fleming. Furthermore, how Adrian and Natalie detect in this book also changes as they have to take on the role of police officers, and I was curious to see how the duo dealt with this challenge.
Synopsis
‘Randy Disher is perfectly happy living with Monk’s old assistant Sharona and working as the new police chief of Summit, New Jersey. But when the city’s leadership is arrested for fraud, he suddenly finds himself appointed acting mayor and overwhelmed by the dual responsibilities–especially when the town is hit by a wave of robberies. In desperation, Disher calls on Adrian Monk to put things in order. As deputized officers, Monk and his assistant Natalie are ready to make Summit the cleanest city on earth–until the burglaries escalate to arson and murder. Now it’s time to get down and dirty, before someone puts Officer Monk out of commission for good.’
Overall Thoughts
However, before Natalie and Adrian head out to New Jersey, the story starts us off in the middle of a crime scene Adrian is analysing back in San Francisco. This is a common opening strategy for this series, and I can see why, as these “mini” cases are good are demonstrating Adrian Monk’s personality and the incongruities of his character. For example, he can barely look at a woman in her pyjamas, due to embarrassment, but if there is a female corpse at a crime scene, then this awkwardness disappears. Natalie explains:
‘He didn’t see her as a woman anymore, or even as a person. She’d become something that was out of place, a disorder that had to be made orderly, a mess that had to be cleaned up, a question that had to be answered.’
This can make Monk appear as a cold thinking machine, but I think those who have read some of the previous books or seen the TV series, will know there is more to him than that. It also helps that crime scenes such as the one in the first chapter, reveal Adrian’s brilliance as a detective, but equally display his blind spots. In a small way this levels the playing field.
I really enjoyed seeing Sharona, Monk’s past assistant, return to the page, as her no nonsense bluntness provides a nice contrast to Natalie. The airport scene demonstrates this well, with Sharona having no qualms about sedating Adrian, so he can fly on the plane with no anxiety. Moreover, whilst at the airport Natalie tries to do a “Monk” and thinks she has deduced that a fellow traveller is a house painter, based on clues upon their person. In reality though the passenger is a bank robber and for me this demonstrates the point that spotting some details is not enough to do what Adrian Monk or Sherlock Holmes do. You have to spot a lot more details and more importantly you need to have the extra knowledge to interpret these clues. In this instance Monk was able to spot the difference between the stains caused by dye and those made by paint.
I would say there is more crime content in this novel compared to of the other ones I have read recently in the series. Furthermore, there are lots of small crimes to be solved rather than there being one central case, which makes the narrative less easy to predict and I liked the surprising moments this offered the reader. The biggest cases to be solved involve a series of house burglaries and a murder. Having read quite a few Monk books this year, 8 in total now, I anticipated who the burglars would be. But this aspect of the plot is resolved by the 50% mark, so the murder becomes the focus, and it arguably becomes something of an inverted mystery. Nevertheless, I think the second half of the novel sees something of a lull in the detection, and this is partially due to Monk’s interactions with the owner of a gallery and café – a business premise based on poo. Poo artwork, poo gifts, poo comestibles. You can imagine how Monk will initially react to such a person, but will this reaction remain the same?
Unusually for this series, the book ends on a cliff hanger, so I am intrigued to see what direction the next novel in the series heads in. Overall, I would say there is less puzzle complexity in this story, but it has a stronger crime focus and I enjoyed how Adrian and Natalie have to interact with different law enforcement organisations.
Rating: 4.25/5