Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop by Lee
Goldberg
Best In The Series
More compulsive fun in this all-new, original mystery starring everyones
favorite OCD detective, one of televisions best-loved characters.(Honolulu
Star- Bulletin)
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 hes used the latest round of budget cuts as an excuse to cut
Monk loose?

But Monk is much too compulsive to stop investigating, even without pay.
Soon hes calling in tips under assumed names to help solve cases. (Who
would ever guess the real identity of Adrian Smith and Adrian Jones?)
Then Stottlemeyer is framed for the murder of another cop-and only one
detective in San Francisco can save him...
Personal Review: Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop by Lee Goldberg
It's an odd feeling to open a book and read that you've drowned in a
swimming pool.
To thank me for helping with a previous "Monk" book, Lee Goldberg asked
if I would mind being killed for your entertainment in "Mr. Monk and the
Dirty Cop." I said yes, pleased at the prospect of contributing to a novel
without actually going to the trouble of writing it.
It also solved a problem when it came to writing this review. I've enjoyed
Goldberg's work since encountering his Star Trek parody "Beyond the
Beyond" more than a decade ago. Since then, he's turned out a number of
novels, including tie-in novels for "Monk" and "Diagnosis: Murder," and a
standalone comic novel ("The Man with the Iron-On Badge," a Donald
Westlake-type romp that plays off his love of TV detective shows), that
have been consistently good in quality.
The consistency is good for Goldberg, but it plays merry hell with a
reviewer who finds himself running out of new things to say about each
book. So I was looking forward to seeing myself splashed across the
pages of "Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop."
"Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop" plays with the logical outcome of Monk's
incredible crime-solving ability. His perfect record is used to embarrass
Captain Stottlemeyer, his boss, and he loses his contract as a result of
budget cuts. Monk goes to work for a high-end security firm, but is called
back when Stottlemeyer is charged with murdering a detective he had
bounced from the force years before.
That's it in a nutshell, but there's a lot of subplots as well, and that's where
I or at least my namesake comes in. When Teeger expresses frustration
about her purpose in life, Stottlemeyer takes her to visit a family taking
care of Dad, a delusional old rummy who used to run a bar and pass tips
along to the police. Here's how we meet him:
"Bill Peschel stood behind the kitchen counter, drying some glasses with a
towel. He looked to me to be in his late sixties or early seventies. He wore
an apron over his sunken chest and broad belly. Tufts of hair sprang from
his nearly bald head like patches of dry, overgrown weeds. His nicotine-
stained teeth were almost the same color as his weathered skin."
Like Monk, he's living in his own world, only worse. Or, as one of his
relatives put it:

"You try living with a delusional, gutter-mouthed old coot who thinks he's
still tending bar in a Tenderloin dump filled with hookers and drunks."
Good thing Goldberg has never met me. I'd start feeling self-conscious.
Like I said, it's a good thing I'm not reviewing the book, because as I kept
encountering my name, I felt more and more uncomfortable. Seeing one's
name in print associated with this character causes a disassociation with
my self-image of the employed writer, father, and husband. Sometimes, it
felt like I could feel a gear slipping in my head, so it was something of a
relief when I'm finally killed and my ashes are dumped in front of the former
site of the bar, now a Jamba Juice.
Fortunately, there's plenty to appreciate about the book. Getting inside the
characters' heads is a major function of fiction that film can rarely reach,
and in this series, Natalie's concerns about her place in the world form a
major backbone of the series. There's even room for the odd observation
of her own, such as this one about Marin County commuters who listen to
NPR:
"How do I know what station they were listening to on their radios?
Because I know Marin County residents are well educated, own at least
one Bob Dylan or Van Morrison album, and are notoriously liberal for
people with so much money."
Then, she breaks the fourth wall:
"And because I like to embrace cliches that have some truth to them and I
enjoy making broad generalizations that support my biases. If you haven't
learned that about me by now, you haven't been reading very closely."
Pleasure can even be taken in the secondary characters. Stottlemeyer
reflects with mixed emotions on how he sees Monk's role in the
department. Lt. Randy Disher, last seen reveling in his underground cult
status in Paris, gets to take over an investigation in this one. Goldberg
loves playing with the conventions of the TV crime shows, so Disher
imitates David Caruso, complete with sunglasses, tries to get everyone to
call him "Bullitt," and even works in a few one-liners of the kind that lead to
a commercial break.
The Monk books not only capture the pleasures of the TV show, but add to
it by deepening our understanding of the characters. It's a testament to
Goldberg's energy and inventiveness that he's been able to do it
successfully for eight books.
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