Mr. Monk is Miserable

October 20, 2008
Goldberg's seventh novel based on the popular cable TV series fails to capture the spirit of actor Tony Shalhoub's portrayal of Adrian Monk, the brilliant obsessive-compulsive former SFPD detective traumatized by his wife's unsolved murder. To be fair, so much of the show's humor derives from visual gags that translating the character's fastidiousness and quirkiness into print would be a challenge for any writer. After a trip to Germany to track down his shrink, detailed in Mr. Monk Goes to Germany
(2008), Monk takes a detour to Paris at the instigation of his long-suffering assistant, Natalie Teeger. Like Jessica Fletcher of Murder, She Wrote
, Monk can hardly go a day without stumbling over a corpse. En route, he solves the in-flight murder of a fellow airline passenger. Once in Paris, Monk visits a sewer museum, where he notices a fresh skull amid a pile of centuries-old bones. This one's likely to divert only die-hard fans of the TV show.

December 15, 2008
Traveling with Adrian Monk is not easy, given his many phobias and needs. When he and Natalie, his long-suffering assistant, leave Bern, where he followed his therapist because he could not do without his advice, they go to Paris for a vacation. Insisting on visiting the city's sewers, Monk finds a bone that appears to be younger than the other bones in the catacombs. Full of snippets of slapstick humor and Monk's special talents for observation, this will appeal to fans of the USA TV show.

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