Mr. Monk in Trouble

Mr. Monk in Trouble is the ninth novel written by Lee Goldberg to be based on the television series Monk. It was published on December 1, 2009. Like the other novels, the story is narrated by Natalie Teeger, Monk's assistant.

Plot summary

Adrian Monk and Natalie Teeger arrive in Trouble, California to investigate the murder of the town's watchman. They discover that the town is famous for a 1962 unsolved botched train robbery. They also discover that an ancestor of Adrian Monk lived in the town in the 1840s, and that he exhibited many of the same obsessive compulsive traits as Adrian.

The Case of the Piss-Poor Gold

The novel featured a short story entitled The Case of the Piss-Poor Gold, which was published in its entirety before the novel was released in the November 2009 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. In the story, Artemis Monk, an assayer in the California gold rush town of Trouble in the 1840s, goes from determining the value of rocks to solving a murder.

List of characters

Characters from the television series

• Adrian Monk: the titular detective, played on the series by Tony Shalhoub
• Natalie Teeger: Monk's loyal assistant and the narrator of the book, played on the series by Traylor Howard

Original characters

• Artemis Monk: Adrian Monk's ancestor who lived in Trouble, California in the 1840's and exhibited many of the same obsessive compulsive traits as Adrian