Monk Books

Here is the cover for
MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSISTANTS. (Click on  the image for a larger picture).

Today my third original MONK novel MR.
MONK AND THE BLUE FLU  will be appearing on shelves in bookstores
nationwide. Here’s what the book is about:

Monk is horrified when he learns there’s
going to be a blue flu in San Francisco—until Capt. Stottlemeyer explains that
it just means the police plan to call in "sick" until they get a better
contract. The good news is the labor dispute will give Monk a chance to get back
on the force. The bad news is it means he’ll be a "scab"—and he doesn’t like the
sound of that either.

But before he knows it, Monk has his badge back, and his own squad to
command. Unfortunately, some of the squad members make Monk look like a paragon
of mental health. But despite the challenges, they’ll have to pull together to
catch an astrologer’s killer, solve a series of mysterious fatal assaults, and
most importantly, clean up their desks…

Monk has been working for years to get his badge back, so I thought it would
be fun to see what would happen if he finally got his wish…if only for a
while….and to see him in an entirely different situation than he’s ever been
in before. I’ve been toying with the idea of a "Blue Flu" story ever since I was
first approached to write original Monk novels…but somehow it didn’t seem
right to me as the way to kick-off the series of books.

Part of the fun of doing these books for me is the chance to explore aspects
of Monk’s character that haven’t been dealt with yet on the TV series or, as is
the case with MR.
MONK GOES TO HAWAII, go places and do things that the TV series can’t
for various logistical and production reasons. I’m thinking about sending Monk
to Europe for an upcoming book, but we’ll see what happens.

If you would like a signed, personalized copy of MR.
MONK AND THE BLUE FLU,   they are available through Mysteries
To Die For in Thousand Oaks, California. They will be glad to take your
order online and send books almost anywhere in the world.

By the way, this is the last original MONK novel to premiere in
paperback…with the next book, MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSISTANTS, the
series is jumping to hardcover. That book comes out in July 2007 and, as
you can probably guess from the title, is about the surprising return of
Sharona, Monk’s first assistant. You can find a teaser chapter for TWO
ASSISTANTS in the back of MR.
MONK AND THE BLUE FLU

The friendly folks at The Monk Fun Page, the Monk fan supersite, kindly gave MR. MONK AND THE BLUE FLU a detailed, rave review. Here’s a small excerpt:

The Monk books just keep
getting better. Better than the TV series? I won’t fully commit to that, but
the novels have what the show sometimes isn’t even aiming for: well executed
fair play whodunit mystery plots. The complex story, abundance of colorful
characters and high body count in Blue Flu may demand a little
more concentration than the show or even the previous two books. It’s too
delightfully long and complex for an episode, but trimmed down it would make a
great entry in the series, just as the first novel (Mr. Monk and the
Firehouse) did when it was adapted for the fifth season episode
“Mr. Monk Can’t See a Thing.

I’m also hoping that Andy Breckman, the creator and executive producer of MONK, will  consider BLUE FLU for an episode… even if it means Monk has to be deaf, speechless, or paralyzed in this one!

Here’s the cover of the Polish edition of MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE.

Maddie and I went to the Monk Wrap party last week. Of course, all the
pictures that Monk creator Andy Breckman took of me with Tony Shalhoub didn’t turn out.
But here are a few that did…that’s me with Andy Breckman, Jason Gray Stanford and my daughter with Stanley Kamel. (Click on the pictures for larger images)