- When one member of a mystery writing team wants to break from his less talented partner, he becomes the victim in a real-life murder mystery.
- One half of a murder-mystery writing team kills his more talented partner after the latter announces his intentions to go solo which would ultimately leave the former in financial ruin. Later a grocery store owner, who has important information pertaining to the case and has romantic desires for the killer, sees this incident as an opportunity to blackmail him into having a relationship with her. Feeling cornered, he kills her and tries to make it look like she'd fallen off a boat and drowned in a drunken stupor.
- Writing team Ken Franklin and James Ferris have become rich and famous due to Mrs. Melville novels. When James announces his plans to go solo to write more serious novels, Ken murders him and makes it look like a hit. Unfortunately for Ken, Ms. Sanka who has romantic feelings for him knows the truth and attempts to blackmail him. He murders her too all the while trying to dodge Columbo who is hot on his trail.—charmardee-smith
- Ken Franklin and James Ferris have become rich as the writing duo of the popular Mrs. Melville mystery novels. In reality, James Ferris writes the novels while Ken Franklin handles all the publicity. When Jim wants to depart to try serious writing on his own, Ken comes up with what he believes is a foolproof scheme to kill his partner and collect on the insurance policy that they have on each other. What Ken Franklin doesn't count on is a rumple-coated police lieutenant who won't be led astray...and a blackmailing witness.—Mark Limvere-Robinson
- In the first regular episode of Columbo, as part of the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie wheel, Ken Franklin (Jack Cassidy) is one half of a best-selling duo of mystery writers. Unknown to the public, however, his contribution is merely handling the public relations for the team, while Jim Ferris (Martin Milner) actually writes the books... Jim wants to end the partnership after the current "Mrs. Melville" mystery is completed and write on his own, and this has caused a heated argument with Ken, who see's his lavish lifestyle going up in smoke. However, there is still the mutual life insurance policy that the partners have! While Jim is working at their office on a Saturday to finish the last chapter of the final book, Ken visits him to apologize for blowing his stack previously and to "grant the divorce" that Jim seeks. He plays an obviously false practical joke with an unloaded revolver and breaks open a bottle of champagne to put Jim at ease. Furthermore, Ken insists that Jim take a break and join him for the day at his new lakefront cabin which Jim has yet to see.
We see the beginning of the murder plot when Ken 'accidentally' leaves his Dunhill cigarette lighter in the office, and he must return to get it while leaving Jim in the car outside. He uses this time to place a list of names of west coast gangsters in a drawer and to then trash the office, so it will look as though gangsters that Jim was allegedly researching for a book have done it and, of course, killed Jim. Nearing the cabin, Ken stops at a local grocery store to pick up some supplies, and also make an (untraceable in 1971) phone call to Jim's wife Joanna (Rosemary Forsyth) to establish that he is 2 hours away from the office... Later we find out that while he was using the pay phone, Lilly La Sanka (Barbara Colby) the nosy widow who owns the store and has obvious designs on Ken Franklin, has checked his car to see which girlfriend he has brought with him this weekend, and spied Jim Ferris sitting in the passenger seat.
Upon reaching the cabin, Jim is uncomfortable about leaving town without telling Joanna, so Ken tells him to call her and tell her that he's working late at the office, as he has done so many times before. Again, this is 1971, and people were still in the habit of using operators to place long-distance calls. Jim does precisely that and Ken has to stop him so that Joanna won't know that Jim is NOT calling from the office. This also establishes the direct-dial call on Ken's phone bill as though it is the call that he made to Joanna, NOT from the pay phone at the market... During the phone call, Ken shoots Jim with the pistol that now has cartridges in it, and then Joanna calls the police and sends them to the duo's office.
As a daring and useful way to dispose of JIm's body, Ken returns to Los Angeles with Jim in the trunk of his car. He later dumps the body on his own lawn at night and calls the police, telling them that this is a message from the 'gangsters' that he had better not follow in Jim's footsteps.
Lilly La Sanka visits Kenwhile he was going out with sexy blonde Gloria (Lynette Mettey), at the door of a luxurious cinema. Lilly pesters Ken about the murder so that he is forced to talk to her. On a dine out at a restaurant, Lilly asks Ken for $15,000. She'll never ask him anything else afterwards, but she wants to put a price to her silence just this once. They have a second date - in her home behind the store - where they drink a lot, dine heartily and he says he'll give her the money, and she insists that she's got class and honour, so he won't hear of her afterwards. After drinking well and much, she starts to realise the ackwardness of the situation. Knowing that he won't have a second chance, he hits her on the head, goes to one of her rental rowboats on the lake, throws her body into the lake and their champagne bottles, overturns the boat and swims to the shore.
Columbo pesters him - he suspects something when he hears that a local shop assistant has died of a freak accident. The final clue is given to Columbo when he finds a scrap of paper on which Jim Ferris has written down an idea for book by Ferris and Franklin - this very same scenario.
When Columbo arrests Ken, the faux writer says that this murder plot really WAS his - the only really good idea he ever had. He had told it to Jim 5 years earlier but, "who knew that idiot would write it down..."
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
Top Gap
What is the broadcast (satellite or terrestrial TV) release date of Murder by the Book (1971) in Australia?
Answer