Travelling to Hollywood in the company of elderly writer Walter Murray, with whom she is slated to collaborate on a movie script, Jessica makes a brief stop at a seedy motel-diner. Later that evening, Walter is found dead in his motel room, leaving behind a tape recording detailing the events leading up to his demise. In a series of stunningly photographed black-and-white flashbacks, Jessica learns that on the previous evening, Walter had been reunited with a woman whom he hadn't seen in 19 years--not since he killed her abusive husband!

At the recommendation of Jessica Fletcher, a young editor heads to Montana, there to organize the unpublished manuscript of the last novel written by a celebrated, recently deceased author. Unable to make heads or tails of the author's notes, the editor concocts a readable volume from his own imagination. Just as he is poised to tell the world that he, and not the late author, penned the novel, the editor is murdered and from here on in, it's up to Jessica to solve the crime.