Literature / Mr Monk In Outer Space

Monk embarks on a completely screwy case when a person in cosplay murders Conrad Stipe, creator of the show Beyond Earth. Monk's investigation is dogged by twists and turns at every corner and his own distaste for the "Earther" fandom — especially after he finds out that his brother Ambrose participates in it.

This book contains examples of the following tropes:

• Absence of Evidence: Monk proves that Burgerville CEO Brandon Lorber died of a heart attack before he was shot, as there wasn't enough bleeding from bullet wounds. There would have been more bleeding if he was still alive and his heart were functioning when he was shot. Also, the way his hands are positioned and the discovery of his heart ticker pills helps.
• Asshole Victim: Brandon Lorber was hated by many within his company, as he was embezzling from the pension fund.
• Attack on the Heart:
  • It initially appears Brandon Lorber was shot twice in the heart and once in the head, but Monk quickly deduces that he actually died of a heart attack and was shot post mortem.
  • Played straight with Conrad Stipe.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Adrian observes that Conrad Stipe's killer acts like a professional hitman, while Ambrose notices discrepancies in the shooter's outfit that Adrian dismisses as insignificant at first, until he realizes that it means the shooter was not a Beyond Earther because a proper fan would not have mismatched the parts of the outfit. Thus, when producer Kingston Mills is killed, Adrian uses his newfound knowledge to determine that the shooting is a copycat crime, because the tape shows the shooter is wearing his uniform correctly.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Adrian and Natalie meet a man named Ernest Pinchuk at the Beyond Earth convention. Pinchuk only speaks in the fictitious Dratch language (which a casual viewer might misinterpret as choking and coughing). When Ambrose is shown the Kingston Mills surveillance tape, his lipreading skills allow him to identify that the killer, who apparently has a coughing fit, is actually speaking Dratch, allowing Adrian to instantly pin the crime on Pinchuk.
• Conspicuously Public Assassination: The hitman deliberately orchestrates the Conrad Stipe shooting to take place in public, and most importantly, in a place where he'll seen by four different surveillance cameras all at once, to make dead sure everyone thinks it was a disgruntled Beyond Earth fan who did it. His attention to detail comes into hand after Kingston Mills is killed, as Adrian notices that Mills' shooter wasn't all that focused on making sure all the cameras caught him.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Seeing as how he was shot by an amateur, not a professional like the hitman who killed Conrad Stipe, Kingston Mills' death takes more bullets and is much more drawn out and painful than Conrad's. He is first shot in the shoulder, then shot in the leg as he tries to run, and finally shot In the Back. Natalie compares it to an execution.
• Darker and Edgier: In-universe, the remake of Beyond Earth is supposed to have the characters portrayed as more flawed and the setting as more depressing, much to the anger of the fans. New producer Kingston Mills had already been involved in a gore-tastic film franchise called Eat Your Flesh, so dark and edgy is apparently his thing.
• Hollywood Law: Monk proves that Brandon Lorber was already dead when someone shot him. Stottlemeyer says that officially it's no longer their case because, he says this means no crime has officially been committed. He's wrong: shooting a dead body constitutes attempted murder.
• Honor Before Reason: Ernest Pinchuk refuses to break his vow to speak only in Dratch even when the police (who can't understand the conlang) accuse him of committing both of the murders.
• Just Giving Orders: Archie kills an assassin just in time to stop him from killing Monk and Natalie (who were getting too close to the truth). When Natalie questions if he means to kill them himself, he says he's not a killer; he only hired one to kill his crooked boss.
• Last Request: Monk manages to get two last requests out of the hit man: 1) tell him what he left in the cab that was so incriminating and 2) clean up the mess after the murder.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Burgerville is a fast-food chain going through a financial scandal that is likened in-universe to the Enron scandal^note Namely, the use of various illegal practices in order to hide financial losses and the skimming of money from the pension fund. But Burgerville's past also includes a few incidents that actually happened to McDonald's, as Randy brings up a twofer in one scene where he's discussing possible motives for Brandon Lorber's death with Monk, Natalie and Stottlemeyer:
    • First, Randy mentions that a consumers group uncovered that Burgerville secretly added beef extract to add flavor to their fries, outraging vegans who'd been eating these fries for years, a controversy that had hit McDonald's in 2000.
    • Then Randy brings up an incident where a guy spilled a cup of coffee at a Burgerville drive-thru in Pleasanton and burned his crotch, then tried to sue the company (he lost the case). This is a clear nod to Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants, aka the "Hot Coffee Case", in which a woman in Albuquerque spilled her cup of coffee while in her car and suffered extensive third degree burns to her crotch. Unlike the fictitious example in the book, the plaintiff in the real case actually won (she had sued only because McDonald's only contributed a meager sum to her medical bills).
    • Of note, there is a fast food chain called Burgerville in real life. It is, however, a regional chain that only operates in the Portland, Oregon/Vancouver, Washington metro area.
  • Beyond Earth is a sci-fi franchise that is in legal disputes reminiscent of ones that have happened with Star Trek:
    • According to one of the special events listed in the Beyond Earth fan convention guide, the statement: "When will Trekkies and Trekkers finally give Earthies and Earthers the respect we deserve?" suggests that in the established story of the novel, a certain degree of viewer competition exists between Star Trek and Beyond Earth fans.
    • The fictional Beyond Earth character "Mr. Snork" provides the disguise the hit man uses when he shoots Conrad Stipe, and is also the disguise used by Ernie Pinchuk when he shoots Kingston Mills. Based on his name and description, he appears to be an oblique parody of Mr. Spock.
    • The name of Mr. Snork's species and fictional language, "Dratch," is taken from Monk series writer and producer Daniel Dratch, as a series in-joke, but the language's concept, creation and use is a reference to the Klingon constructed language.
    • Arianna Stipe, Conrad Stipe's ex-wife, is suing her dead husband's estate for a share of his profits from the new Beyond Earth series, even though it is being produced after they divorced. Similarly, Eileen Roddenberry, first wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, sued her ex-husband's estate after his death, claiming rights to a share of his profits from the making of the original Star Trek series, and the subsequent spin-off series and films.
    • Although the novel was released approximately two years before J. J. Abrams' 2009 reboot film, there is a striking parallel in Conrad Stipe and Kingston Mills' visionary conflict of the new Beyond Earth, and its subsequent effect on fans, with the many creative differences between Gene Roddenberry and J.J. Abrams' own visions of Star Trek; pitting the Original Motion Picture Collection (Star Trek I-VI) against Abrams' reboot.
    • Stottlemeyer says "Beam me up, Scotty," when he notices the gun in Ernie Pinchuk's house, the interior of which has been authentically replicated to look like the interior of the U.S.S. Discovery, from the Beyond Earth series. The U.S.S. Discovery itself is probably the Beyond Earth version of the Starship Enterprise.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Monk points this out to the police after they've accused Ernest Pinchuk of both of the murders — both he and Pinchuk act in ways that may seem irrational but to them are the only way of putting the world back to rights. He then points out that Pinchuk wouldn't have killed Conrad Stipe because it goes against his personal code. Natalie is thrilled that Monk has finally had a breakthrough; the police are less impressed.
• Red Herring: The hitman dresses up as Mr. Snork to kill Conrad Stipe so that the police will think the killer is a disgruntled Beyond Earth fan.
• Skewed Priorities: When Natalie crashes her jeep through the door to pick up Monk and prevent the hit man from killing him, Monk wastes valuable time worrying about who will clean up the mess.
• Tuckerization: As stated above, the Dratch language is named after Monk writer/producer Daniel Dratch.
• Villainous Rescue: Archie Applebaum, who hired the hit man to kill Brandon Lorber, shoots that same hit man to save Monk and Natalie, who he wanted to kill for knowing too much. Natalie questions if he wants to do the job himself, and Archie answers that he's not a killer, although he admits he hired one for a single job.
• Working the Same Case: Monk is brought in to investigate the death of Burgerville CEO Brandon Lorber, whose shooting death he quickly realizes was actually a heart attack - and the shooter passed off the death as a murder. The next day, he is brought in to consult on an apparently unrelated incident, the shooting of Beyond Earth creator Conrad Stipe at a convention. The day after that, a cab driver named Phil Bisson is shot and killed in what Monk deduces as being a staged robbery. It is this third murder that causes Monk to deduce that Lorber and Stipe were shot by the same person - he finds a piece of chewing gum that is the same brand as a piece that Stipe was chewing before he was killed, and a wrapper from a coffee candy in Lorber's office. The shooter was a hired hit man. Bisson was the cab driver who drove the hit man away after he shot Lorber's body. During the ride to the airport, the hitman lost his phone, which had incriminating messages between him and his employer and information on Lorber. Stipe answered it when the hitman called it from an airport payphone. The hitman killed Stipe and the cabbie as he couldn't risk that either of them had browsed his messages.