A woman commits suicide and minutes later Captain Stottlemeyer is shot nearby. Monk needs to determine if the two events are related, but his new medication has turned him into an obnoxious jerk who can't concentrate on the case.

When an author of a book debunking the career of a popular martial-arts movie star is killed, the evidence points to the star himself, despite the fact that he has been dead for years! Monk takes the case and also gets a chance to prove to Natalie that he is not as selfish as he seems.