Columbo

About the series

Contains story spoilers.

Lieutenant Columbo works homicide in Los Angeles, where the victims’ lives often intersect with people accustomed to command attention. The series repeatedly begins by showing a murder and its preparation before the detective appears. That choice changes the usual mystery question: viewers generally know who killed the victim, so the puzzle becomes how Columbo will establish what happened and make a suspect’s polished explanation collapse. The criminals may be celebrated artists, business leaders, media figures or professionals, but their status does not shield them from his low-key persistence. The format makes investigation a contest between careful concealment and close observation.

In “Murder by the Book,” Ken Franklin fears losing the income and celebrity attached to his writing partnership when Jim Ferris decides to work alone. Jim does the writing; Ken supplies the public face. Ken takes him to a lakeside cabin, persuades him to telephone his wife Joanna as if he were still at their office, and shoots him during the call. Grocery-store owner Lily La Sanka saw Jim in Ken’s car and demands money for silence, becoming Ken’s second victim. Columbo follows the inconsistencies behind the novelist’s smooth explanations, including his absence from the cabin on the night Lily died. Joanna’s account of Jim’s habit of recording story ideas leads the detective to a written version of the murder plan. The supposedly ingenious crime has already existed on paper, in the murdered writer’s own handwriting.

“Death Lends a Hand” begins with private investigator Brimmer concealing Lenore Kennicut’s affair from her husband while trying to blackmail her into supplying information about his powerful contacts. Lenore refuses and threatens to expose Brimmer. He strikes her, and she falls against a table and dies; he then moves her body to an industrial area. Her husband unwittingly hires the killer to assist the police investigation. Columbo notices the impression of a jeweled ring on Lenore’s cheek and quietly examines Brimmer’s hands while discussing palmistry. Later he claims one of her contact lenses is missing. Brimmer searches the place where she fell and then his car trunk, where he transported her body. Columbo waits with witnesses at the garage. The supposed missing lens is a ruse, but Brimmer’s efforts to retrieve it expose knowledge he should not possess.

In “Suitable for Framing,” art critic Dale Kingston kills his uncle Rudy, steals valuable Degas pastels and tries to direct suspicion toward Rudy’s former wife, Edna. His accomplice Tracy supplies the timing trick behind his art-show alibi, then becomes another victim when Dale retrieves the stolen works from her. Columbo notices that the staged burglary pays oddly selective attention to the paintings. Visiting Dale’s apartment, he reaches into the folder containing the pastels before Dale stops him. Dale subsequently plants them in Edna’s linen closet and encourages a police search. At the confrontation, Columbo identifies the revealing fingerprints as his own: he touched the works while Dale held them. Dale argues that Columbo could have touched them during the search, but the detective takes his gloved hands from his pockets. Edna’s supposed guilt rests on evidence that instead traces the paintings to Dale.

“A Friend in Deed” puts Columbo against deputy police commissioner Mark Halperin. Halperin helps his neighbor Hugh Caldwell conceal the killing of Caldwell’s wife, disguising it as another crime by the Bel Air Burglar. He then drowns his own wife in the bath and forces Caldwell to help stage a second burglary and poolside death while Halperin appears to witness it from a police helicopter. Soap in the victim’s lungs undermines the swimming-pool account. Columbo enlists real burglar Artie Jessup and inserts a false address into Jessup’s police file. Halperin reads it and plants the stolen jewels there, intending to close the investigation with a convenient arrest. At the search, Columbo reveals that he rented the apartment himself. The commissioner has placed incriminating property in a location he learned solely through the detective’s trap.

In “Now You See Him,” the Great Santini kills nightclub owner Jesse Jerome to prevent exposure of his past as Nazi SS guard Stefan Mueller. Santini appears to be performing a water-tank escape when the murder occurs, but leaves through a concealed exit, disguises himself as a waiter and uses radio equipment to simulate a conversation from his dressing room. Columbo challenges him to escape handcuffs fitted with the same supposedly unpickable lock as Jerome’s office, demonstrating his ability to enter the room. A magician’s shop and former performer Michael Lally supply leads about concealed microphones. The missing blackmail letter supplies the motive once its text is recovered from the typewriter’s used carbon ribbon. Santini burns the copy shown to him, only for Columbo and Sergeant Wilson to produce further copies. Destroying the paper no longer destroys the evidence.

“Murder Under Glass” follows food critic Paul Gerard, who extorts restaurant owners by trading publicity for a share of their profits. Vittorio Rossi threatens to expose him and dies after drinking wine poisoned through a pneumatic bottle opener. Gerard’s immediate willingness to help police, without seeking medical attention despite having shared the victim’s meal, interests Columbo. Cancelled checks uncover the financial arrangement, and Gerard’s knowledge of preparing fugu links him to the toxin. For the final test, Columbo invites Gerard to a meal and marks the restaurant’s opener beforehand. Gerard replaces it with a poisoned one, but Columbo also switches their wine glasses. The detective drinks safely and stops Gerard from drinking the contaminated glass, preserving it for examination. His investigation turns a restaurant’s ordinary table equipment into evidence of both the original murder and a second attempt.