Sharona remains behind in Los Angeles, intending to do some asking around about Ellen Cole, while Monk and Natalie head back to San Francisco. During the drive, Monk flips through the Ludlow titles and quickly solves the mysteries in the books after only reading the first few pages. Natalie berates him for ruining the plots, but Monk remarks that there's really no point to reading his books: after all, in San Francisco, he solves a lot of cases that are usually a lot more interesting and complicated than what Ludlow can conjure. Not to mention, Ludlow has a certain key aspect present throughout his titles - the killer is always the least likely suspect who is betrayed by a personality quirk.