User Reviews

Once again Joe is on a case for all the wrong reasons. Newspaper tycoon Darrell Bigelow (Dennis Patrick) hires Joe to find his wife, Rebekah (Barabra Rush). She is with her boyfriend, a boat bum named Vince Larkin. Joe's search gets him a visit from a photographer who has a photo of the wife and boyfriend at certain motel. This leads to another hotel in Palms Springs and a helpful maid who remembers the couple arguing. Joe eventually ends up at the Larkin beach house where he finds Rebekah alone and takes her home. Case closed but Joe finds it too easy. He investigates further and finds that Larkin just died on his boat. (This is where Tom Selleck shows up.) He also meets Larkin's wife, Maggie (Erica Larkin). Those two deserved each other. Joe comes to the conclusion that Vince Larkin is buried under another name and the guy who arranged it is Bigelow. Then Joe is lured back to the beach house by a call from Maggie who is working with the bad guys. After the call, she is eliminated. Joe shows up and gets in a fist fight with the Bigelow chauffeur. He fights him off and the guy runs away. Joe goes out to the Bigelow house to get permission to dig up the grave where he thinks Larkin is buried. Surprisingly, he gets permission, and the coffin contains an old man as advertised. Joe comes to the conclusion it is a two man coffin and goes back to the graveyard at night. He tells the Bigelows his plan and ends up fighting with the chauffeur again. He wins this fight and Art shows up to clean up the mess. Joe goes to the Bigelow house to see the wife. She confesses she killed Larkin but then Darrell Bigelow shows up and confesses he did it. Surprisingly, there is no action at the climax here as Bigelow says he will fight the accusations and Joe leaves. Bigelow makes one statement that every bad client should make. "Our mistake was hiring Mr Mannix." Why do clients do that when Joe has an impeccable record in getting to the truth? They should hire some of Joe's ne'er-do-well fellow PIs that he is always helping out or avenging. There actually is no reason for the Bigelows to hire Joe at all. They had a good plan without him.

There is some nice detective work by Joe when he notices blooming roses in a photo that shouldn't have them so he checks out the maid's story and proves it false.

The cast is good. You know the client is bad from the get-go when it is Dennis Patrick because he is always a bad guy. I like the photographer, Gabriel. He was a bit different than the usual slimeball. Barbara Rush is always excellent and always pretty.

Joe gets in two fights with the same guy. Peggy works some phone magic that only she can do. Lt Malcolm cleans up after Joe. Joe did get paid so he actually made money off a bad client for once. This is a solid episode and you should see it.

This is one of those "bird dog" episodes, but instead of someone sending Joe to find someone the client wants for other reasons, it's reversed to where the client doesn't really want the person but just a trail of sorts. If that doesn't make sense, watch the episode and you'll see.... that it doesn't really make sense either. The wife could just have called the chauffeur to pick her up and used him as witness, instead of the whole setup with Joe. Some episodes have Peggy say something that tips off the whole thing, but in this one the idea she leads to is just more goofy. Hard to recommend this one....

And yes, Magnum (Tom Selleck) is in it. Almost missed him as he has a short appearance, but the main thing is he is talking with a very nasal voice nothing like in Magnum or other shows.....