Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop

Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop is the eighth novel in the Monk mystery book series by Lee Goldberg. It was published on July 7, 2009. In this novel, Captain Stottlemeyer cancels Adrian Monk's consulting contract with the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) and gets into a fight with Detective Paul Braddock, leading Monk, Natalie Teeger, and Randy Disher to suspect that Stottlemeyer is a dirty cop abusing his power.

Though most of the novel is told from the perspective of Natalie Teeger, it breaks from the series formula by including several scenes which are written from Randy Disher's perspective.

Plot Summary[]

Natalie Teeger isn't sure who she is or what she was meant to do. Being Adrian Monk's assistant, she spends most of her time in the company of a man who, as dysfunctional as he otherwise is, knows what he's good at and what makes him happy. She wishes she could say the same.

Monk and Natalie go to the scene of what looks like a self-defense killing at a law school, in order to get Monk's overdue paycheck from responding officers Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher. Monk sees through the façade and exposes the shooter, his old criminology Professor Jeremiah Cowan, as having committed murder.

Natalie worries how much Stottlemeyer's ego can stand being shown up by Monk's superior skills, over and over again. She worries even more when, two days after the university incident, Monk and Stottlemeyer are invited to give a panel lecture at a law enforcement officers' convention being held in San Francisco. The panel moderator, a former SFPD officer named Paul Braddock, has an axe to grind against Stottlemeyer, who made him resign eight years ago rather than face charges of brutality and corruption. Braddock's questions highlight the SFPD's reliance on Monk to maintain their high closure rate.

Afterwards, Natalie invites the Captain out for coffee. He assures her that he's fine, and he was sincere when he said Monk's genius is the best possible thing for the department, and the public as a whole. She loosens up and shares some of her own insecurity. Stottlemeyer invites her and Monk to accompany him on a visit to an old friend the next day, across the bay in the small town of Mill Valley.

The friend is Bill Peschel, who used to run a dive bar in the Tenderloin and was one of the SFPD's most valued confidential informants. He sold his bar and retired to Florida ten years ago, but his suburban daughter, Carol, and her husband took Bill in after the onset of senility. He believes that he is still tending his bar and passing on hot tips to his old police contacts. Natalie takes Stottlemeyer's point: Bill knows who he is, but to the point of forgetting anything else. Meanwhile, Monk is enraptured by a Diaper Genie, realizing it can be used to individually seal each piece of garbage in its own plastic baggie. Monk drags Natalie around the city, stocking up on Diaper Genies to equip each room in his apartment, and as gifts for his friends.

A few days later, when Monk goes to the station to give Stottlemeyer and Disher their Genies, Stottlemeyer cancels Monk's consulting agreement, citing budget cuts. Natalie is furious, believing that Stottlemeyer is taking out his own inadequacy on Monk.

Unable to stand the thought of the SFPD's closure rate falling, Monk starts calling the anonymous tips line to the police about crimes he reads about in the newspaper and visiting recent murder scenes, such as the shooting of Judge Clarence Stanton, who was to preside over the upcoming trial of feared mobster Salvatore Lucarelli. Stottlemeyer ejects him from the scene, since it is illegal for civilians to cross police lines, but Monk continues to hang around and notices clues that the shooter was a woman.

The morning after Monk is cut out of the SFPD budget, Nicholas Slade, a former SFPD Vice Detective, and the owner of the Intertect detective agency, wants to hire Monk and Natalie. Natalie's eyes pop when she sees the salaries and benefits packages she and Monk are being offered, and Monk is on board once the salary is rounded up to an even number. Monk is given a caseload, and an assistant, Danielle Hossack. Given that the twenty-something Danielle is a trilingual PhD with a black belt in psychology from Montreal, and a supermodel's face and figure, Natalie can't help but feel inadequate, but Danielle treats her as a superior, giving her full credit for her part in Monk's successes. On the first day, Monk is on a roll, solving Intertect cases at what seems like an amazing rate, until Monk informs Natalie that he has been staying up all night to work on them, to her dismay.

When a second judge, Alan Carnegie, is killed, Monk and Natalie are assigned a new client: Salvatore Lucarelli. Since Carnegie was the designated alternate to hear Lucarelli's case, Lucarelli is suspected of ordering the hit. When interviewed in the county jail, Lucarelli swears he had nothing to do with either judge's death.

Monk visits the crime scene. The police are already convinced it was the same killer, since a ballistics expert matched a recovered bullet to the gun that killed Stanton. Monk deduces that the widow, Rhonda Carnegie, is the killer, since Carnegie's dog did not bark during the murder. As unhappy as he is with Monk's presence, Stottlemeyer has faith in his judgment, and arrests Rhonda Carnegie. Stottlemeyer then gets a call that Bill has been found dead in his swimming pool. Monk tags along to the pool, but sees nothing to make him doubt the police's conclusion that Bill climbed onto a chair, jumped over his fence, banged his head on the coping while diving into the pool, and drowned.

Concerned over Monk's lack of sleep, Natalie tries taking the case files away from him, but he goes over her head to get more.

Monk and Natalie are invited to Bill's wake, being held at the house. In attendance are Braddock and Slade, who also received tips from Bill. Braddock and Stottlemeyer goad each other. Stottlemeyer's barbs hit home, and Braddock throws a punch, leading to a fight. Slade breaks it up. Monk realizes that because Bill's socks did not have grass stains and the chair did not sink into the lawn, he did not reach the pool on his own power – meaning he was murdered. Narrowing down suspects is difficult: Bill's considerable savings (accumulated from the sale of his dive bar and stock in the famous social networking website InTouchSpace.com), coupled with a $1.5 million life insurance policy, are plenty of motive for his son-in-law, Phil Atwater, who recently lost his job and is hiding it from Carol, nor would Monk rule out Carol herself. Moreover, Bill's information sent a lot of crooks to jail.

When another cart of files shows up at Monk's apartment, an enraged Natalie confronts Slade for overloading Monk with work. He refuses to ease off, but later changes his mind and gives Monk a rest.

Braddock is found strangled to death in his hotel room. Because of the recent fight, Stottlemeyer recuses himself and orders Randy to lead the investigation. Randy uncovers evidence that links Stottlemeyer to the crime: Braddock was strangled with a tie identical to one Stottlemeyer wears; security footage shows Stottlemeyer was at the hotel at the time of the murder, a fact which he kept from Randy; and his fingerprints are on fragments of a glass that shattered on the floor. Moreover, the timing suggests that he dismissed Monk in order to prevent his investigating the case. Randy places his captain under arrest.

Natalie learns from Phil that Bill sold his bar to Dalberg Enterprises, the real estate investment company of Steve Wurzel, who also created InTouchSpace.com. Natalie begins to feel a "tickle", feeling that it is not a coincidence that the purchase, Bill's investment in InTouchSpace.com, and Steve's death were all ten years ago. Monk dismisses her tickle as "the onset of a massive stroke."

Stottlemeyer calls Monk from jail, asking for help. To Natalie's outrage, Monk is convinced that Stottlemeyer is guilty, and Randy has become Acting Captain Disher. At the hotel, Monk notices that each room has four glasses, while the crime scene photos show five glasses in Braddock's room, suggesting that the broken glass was planted. Stottlemeyer's theory is that the killer is someone Braddock put in jail based on a tip from Bill, and he's just the fall guy.

Slade reprimands Monk for spending his time investigating Bill's death, since no one has hired Intertect to do so. Natalie secretly asks Danielle to use a different computer so that Intertect can't track her researches. Natalie suggests that Steve Wurzel's widow, Linda Wurzel nee Dalberg, is a lead, based on her "tickle." Monk goes with her to interview Linda, who is getting a beauty treatment in Chinatown. Linda knows of Monk through Slade, who was an early investor in InTouchSpace.com. She confirms that it was her real estate agency that bought Bill's bar ten years ago, though it was another good decade before the property was actually re-developed. As they are leaving, Monk solves the case. But he tells Natalie that so has she, and lets her work it out for herself.

To her astonishment, she realizes he's right; her thoughts may not be as fast or as orderly as Monk's, but after a few minutes' hard thinking, she arrives at the same conclusion and gives the summation.

Here's What Happened[]

Ten years ago, Linda Wurzel went to Bill Peschel's bar, looking for someone she could hire to kill her husband. Bill passed the tip to Nick Slade, who was a cop at the time. But instead of arresting her, Slade took the job. He murdered Steve, and Linda inherited her husband's fortune. She bought Bill's bar, and gave both Slade and Bill company stock. Bill retired, and Slade opened his detective agency. Ten years later, a senile Bill started repeating ten-year-old tips to his old contacts, Braddock and Stottlemeyer. Slade couldn't take the chance that either of them would give any thought to what Bill said. He killed Bill and Braddock, and framed Stottlemeyer to shift the blame and get him out of circulation. He also hired Monk and overloaded him with cases, to keep Monk's mind off Bill's murder. For Natalie, it is a revelation: being Monk's assistant is who she is.

The problem is, there's no proof of any of it. So Monk, Natalie, and Danielle tail Linda in Natalie and Danielle's cars, while Julie takes their Intertect company car in order to foil Slade's car tracking. Linda meets Slade in an empty warehouse in order to rebuke him for failing to keep a lid on the case. Slade pulls out a gun to kill Linda, leaving Monk and Natalie no choice but to expose their presence. Danielle tackles Slade, allowing Natalie to grab his gun. Slade takes Danielle hostage, but Natalie warns she'll shoot regardless if he doesn't release her. Slade folds. Monk has already admitted he has no evidence, and Linda is hardly likely to confess to her own crimes to implicate Slade. However, Natalie and Danielle inform everyone that they called Natalie's voicemail and a 9-1-1 operator respectively, recording everything they said. Crestfallen, Linda weeps, but Slade is enraged, and fires Natalie.

Stottlemeyer is exonerated. The recording of Natalie's face-off with Slade is popular listening around the station, and Julie drops her teenager front and tearfully berates her mother for almost getting killed.

Both Slade and Linda are tripping over each other to confess to everything, hoping to cut a deal and get a lesser sentence. Slade has the advantage, however, since he recorded the conversation where Linda hired him (indicating that he was not a corrupt cop before then) and has kept the tape. Stottlemeyer's arrest has been embarrassing enough for the chief to restore Stottlemeyer's budget, and Monk's contract. Monk is the first to welcome Stottlemeyer back into his office - freshly scrubbed. Randy and Stottlemeyer are reconciled, and Monk renews his resolve to spread usage of the Diaper Genie.

Characters[]

Characters from the television show[]

Original Characters[]

Nicholas Slade
Danielle Hossack
Paul Braddock
Judge Clarence Stanton
Judge Alan Carnegie
Rhonda Carnegie
Detective Jack Lansdale
Steve Wurzel (mentioned only)
Linda Wurzel
Bill Peschel
Carol Atwater
Professor Jeremiah Cowan

Timeline[]

The book takes place sometime after the seventh season premiere, "Mr. Monk Buys a House," after Dr. Kroger's death and Monk's transfer to Dr. Bell. The previous two novels, Mr. Monk Goes to Germany and Mr. Monk is Miserable, while written after the death of Stanley Kamel (the actor who played Dr. Kroger), both took place before Dr. Kroger's death, as he appears in both novels.

Where exactly Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop falls in series continuity is open to interpretation, although given the time it was written, it would be most likely that it takes place during the time period in between the episode "Mr. Monk Gets Hypnotized" and before the episode "Mr. Monk and the Miracle". However, if this were the case, Natalie should either be driving an Audi A3 or a Nissan Sentra, and not a Buick Lucerne.

Background Information and Notes[]

Salvatore Lucarelli previously appeared in the season 3 episode "Mr. Monk Meets the Godfather," and Natalie's exposition briefly sketches the background of that episode. (A man came into a barbershop and gunned all five people down. Lucarelli and his nephew, "Fat" Tony, hired Monk and Sharona to find out who was responsible. That episode happens to have been co-written by Lee Goldberg).
One of the tips Bill gives Stottlemeyer is that Hy Conrad was bragging about a Jewelry Mart robbery. Hy Conrad was, like the book's author Lee Goldberg, a writer on the Monk TV show, and years later would take over the writing of the book series from Goldberg.
When Monk compares riding in an elevator to being buried alive, Natalie is skeptical, and Monk reminds her that he actually has been buried alive twice before - referring to "Mr. Monk vs. The Cobra" (when gravedigger Chris Downey buried Monk alive in a coffin) and "Mr. Monk and the Buried Treasure" (when Monk and Troy Kroger were buried by bank manager Steven Connolly in Troy's car at a quarry).
Stottlemeyer tells Rhonda Carnegie that Monk "has never been wrong about murder." This seems to be deliberate irony on the author's part, since not only has Monk been wrong about murder on a few previous occasions (believing Murderuss / Russell Kroy to be the murderer in "Mr. Monk and the Rapper", for example), but later in the novel Monk is wrong about murder with regard to Stottlemeyer himself, concluding he killed Paul Braddock.
While examining Braddock's hotel room, Natalie remembers a past crime scene in which Disher showed her the room through an infrared spectroscope, revealing all the otherwise-invisible bodily fluids on all the surfaces of the room. Rita Brownyn (Polly Draper) taught Monk how to use a similar device in the season 1 episode "Mr. Monk Takes a Vacation."
While aiming a gun at Slade, Natalie reminds him that she's killed before, referring to petty crook Brian Lemmon, whom Natalie stabbed in self-defense in "Mr. Monk and the Red Herring."
The county jail that Monk and Natalie visit three times during the story (the first time to see Salvatore Lucarelli, the other two to see an incarcerated Stottlemeyer) is said to be on 7th Street in San Francisco. This is in fact a real jail: the city has eight county jails, and Jail #2 is located at 425 7th Street.
Whether by coincidence or not, the Professor Cowan subplot at the beginning seems to be reutilized in the episode "Mr. Monk's Favorite Show".
The story bears many similarities to the episode "Mr. Monk Buys a House". In both, a senile old man is murdered in a way that looks like an accident. Both stories also involve murders in the present day that are in a way related to a historical and unsolved murder case. The later novel Mr. Monk in Trouble also was created with a similar plot - a series of present day murders are tied to a very famous crime committed decades ago.

References to real-life persons, locations, or events[]

It is mentioned that Monk and Natalie were cut loose from the SFPD due to a tight budget. Mentions of other cops having a cap on the number of overtime hours they can put in are also given. In early 2009, the SFPD faced a budget crisis, and the loss of overtime hours impacted many criminal investigations.

Factual mistake[]

It is implied that Mill Valley has their own police department. Actually, towns in Marin County are serviced by the Marin County Sheriff's Department.

References to other TV shows[]

Monk buys an official Murder, She Wrote novel. At one point, Natalie says that Cabot Cove, Maine "has the highest per capita murder rate of anyplace on earth."
Monk and Natalie are employed by Intertect, which shares its name with the private investigations agency that Joe Mannix used to work for in the 1970s crime show Mannix. In one of the case files that Monk skims over and solves, the victim is named Lou Wickersham. Lew Wickersham was Joe Mannix's boss at the Intertect agency.
The Dirty Harry film franchise is heavily alluded to in this novel. Several times, Randy speaks with an accent similar to the one Clint Eastwood uses in the franchise, and he nicknames himself "Dirty" Randy. However, he also uses the nickname "Bullitt", a reference to Lt. Frank Bullitt in the film Bullitt. When Natalie is holding Nick Slade up at gunpoint, she tries to convince herself that she is "Dirty Harry in a bra". Her 9-1-1 call and what she says throughout the scene lead Stottlemeyer to joke that he plans on starting to call her "Dirty Natalie" (much to Randy's disapproval).