Ever since a 1962 unsolved train robbery made it famous, people have flocked to the town of Trouble in California’s gold country, searching for the booty that train robbers supposedly dumped off the Golden Rail Express in a botched heist. When the town’s museum’s watchman is murdered, Adrian Monk and his assistant, Natalie, are sent to investigate. But if Monk isn’t careful, he’ll learn that the … the town of Trouble can live up to its name.
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“This is about a friend of mine, Manny Feikema,” Captain Leland Stottlemeyer of the San Francisco Police Department tells Adrian Monk and his assistant (and the novel’s narrator), Natalie Teeger. “He retired about five years ago and moved to Trouble, a tiny old mining town in the California gold country. Manny got bored after only a couple of months, so he signed up as a security guard at the history museum they have there…He was killed two nights ago while doing his rounds.”
Stottlemeyer wants Monk, a former homicide cop and current departmental consultant, to go to Trouble to track down Manny’s killer because he’s out of vacation days and can’t go himself. The local police department is miniscule and “they don’t have the experience or the resources to solve a murder,” Stottlemeyer explains. A fear of tumbleweeds causes the obsessive-compulsive and germaphobic Monk to decline the request until Natalie persuades him that she’ll protect him.
Trouble is one of many towns that sprang up after the California gold rush of 1849, and Natalie tells readers that “It was just as if we’d driven through a time warp and arrived in the 1850s.” Monk, as fans of the television series and readers of earlier books in the books based on it can imagine, is not thrilled at the prospect of contending with a town in which, among other things, burros roam freely.
MR. MONK IN TROUBLE is a “twofer” of a novel, because in addition to Adrian Monk’s sleuthing, readers are provided with sections from Abigail Guthrie’s journal dating from 1855. She and her husband Hank left their hardscrabble Kansas farm in 1852 after Hank learned about the gold rush. They settled in Trouble because it was the first mining town they came to, and the life there was at least as rigorous, if not more so, than it was in Kansas. “…(W)e rarely panned more than six dollars a day worth of color, roughly six pinches of gold dust, and with molasses at one dollar a bottle and flour going for fifty cents a pound, we could barely keep ourselves fed.” The work and, ultimately, illness took their tolls on Hank, and he died before reaching the age of twenty-five. Abigail thus had to figure out how to survive on her own, and wound up working for the town’s only assayer, a “peculiar and extraordinary man who valued cleanliness and order above all else.” His name was Artemis Monk, and in addition to assaying, he also helped the town’s sheriff with criminal investigations.
At Trouble’s historical museum, Adrian Monk learns of another crime: the never-solved robbery in 1962 of over $100,000 in gold coins from the Golden Rail Express, the locomotive from which now resides in the museum. For years, people have searched for the stolen coins, but none have ever turned up. Although he’s there to solve Manny Feikema’s murder, Monk becomes obsessed with the robbery and its attendant mysteries.
As with other books in this series, in addition to solving the primary puzzles, Adrian Monk solves a number of incidental ones. Similarly, the reader is treated via Abigail’s journal to multiple mysteries solved by Artemis Monk, among them the robbery of the Golden Rail Express in 1856.
I’ve read all of the preceding books in this series, and I have to rank MR. MONK IN TROUBLE as one of the best. In addition to entertaining the reader with multiple mysteries, it’s loaded with wonderful humor, much of it in the conversations the two Monks have with their assistants and others. Readers familiar with contemporary crime writers will notice that author Lee Goldberg has some fun with a few characters’ names.
Those who liked the original TV programs should definitely enjoy this novel. Those who have never seen the TV series but who enjoy well-paced comical detective stories should enjoy it, too. Highly recommended.
© 2017 Barry Ergang
Mr. Monk Finds Trouble in a Tourist Town
For those like me mourning the loss of the television show Monk, there is a small bit of comfort. The novels have proved to be popular enough that they are continuing for the time being. And the ninth novel came out just as the series was ending. Mr. Monk in Trouble finds our hero in the California gold country for an all new, funny case.
If you are new to the franchise, Adrian Monk is a former San Francisco homicide detective who was put on leave when his obsessive compulsive behavior and his phobias became too big a problem at work. He and his assistant, Natalie, still do consulting work under the supervision of Monk’s old partner, Captain Stottlemeyer.
And for fans of the show, do note that his book is set before the start of season eight. A couple of references are now out of date as a result, but they are minor details only Monk would obsess over.
When Manny Feikema, a retired SFPD cop is murdered, Captain Stottlemeyer personally asks Monk to look into the case. Manny had moved to the small town of Trouble. While it had boomed during the gold rush, it was now mainly a tourist stop. Manny was working as a night guard for the Gold Rush Museum, and that’s where he was killed.
Monk has hardly arrived before he learns of an unsolved gold robbery from 50 years ago. He’s distracted by his case. Natalie has her own distraction. She’s found the journal of Abigail Guthrie, assistant to a Mr. Artemis Monk. This Mr. Monk was the town assessor and detective during the height of the gold rush. And he behaves just like the modern Mr. Monk. Could he be an ancestor? And will the current Mr. Monk find the killer? Or will he be too distracted by looking for the gold?
I’ve got to admit, I was a bit wary going into this book. Would the old Artemis Monk stories be more a gimmick, or would they feel like an important part of the book. I needn’t have worried. Author Lee Goldberg wove them into a story in a way that kept my interest and didn’t slow the modern story down.
Taking Monk to a small town kept the way it used to be for tourists provided many opportunities for fresh laughs. Plus through in the historic Mr. Monk and you’ve got a (pardon the pun) gold mine of jokes. I often found myself laughing out loud or at least chuckling and smiling as I went through the book.
But it isn’t all laughs. Mr. Goldberg always does a great job with these characters, and he allows us several moments that are very touching and even enlightening about them. They continue to be real people very recognizable to fans of the TV show.
Plus the new characters are interesting. I wouldn’t say they were around long enough to be fully developed, but they were developed enough to make me care about the outcome.
Frankly, the only weakness was the plot. I figured out the big picture before Monk did, although I did need him to fill in many of the details for me. That was sometimes an issue with the TV show as well. And like the show, I was completely entertained while waiting to see if I was right or not.
I have enjoyed these books so much, I don’t completely feel like I’ve lost Monk yet. If you want more adventures with the obsessive compulsive detective, be sure to get Mr. Monk in Trouble.