The wife of a wealthy businessman is suspected of murdering her husband under the cover of a major earthquake.

An angry Willie Nelson accuses his road manager, Sonny Cross, of embezzlement just hours before making a San Francisco radio appearance. Sonny later arrives at the radio station to find a note summoning him to a side entrance. As Sonny disappears down an alley, two shots ring out, and an engineer throws open the side door to find a blind woman, Mrs. Mass, screaming hysterically -- and Willie Nelson hovering over Sonny's dead body. An injured Captain Stottlemeyer decides to put Lt. Disher in charge of the investigation, and Disher loses no time in calling in Adrian Monk.

After reluctantly boarding a cross-country flight to New Jersey, Monk suspects there's a killer aboard.

Monk tries to figure out why a death row inmate was murdered 45 minutes before his execution. Guest stars include Tim Curry, Kathy Baker, John Cothran and Danny Trejo.

Monk travels to New York City to search for his wife's killer.

It's the middle of the night at the estate of eccentric record producer Ian Blackburn. Blackburn is in his home studio, working on some songs for his pop superstar wife, Chloe (Carmen Electra). An alarm goes off, and Blackburn grabs his pet chimpanzee, Darwin, and runs to his fortified panic room where, moments later, police arrive on the scene and blast their way in. They enter to discover an incredibly bizarre tableau: Blackburn shot dead with Darwin the chimp standing over him, covered in blood and holding a revolver. Stottlemeyer and Disher reluctantly hold Darwin as the prime suspect, but they quickly enlist the help of Monk to determine the guilt or innocence of this most unlikely simian suspect.