Rating: - Not bad...if it were FANFICTION
For those of you who are fans of the series, and have watched all episodes, who probably even own the DVDs, prepare to be a little ripped off.

The book is well written. I do enjoy how it is put together; however, I also feel as if this is a bit of a trying ground for Mr. Goldberg. He tries it in a novel, then puts it in an episode. Or, he puts it in an episode, then writes it up.

"Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse" (publication date: 2006) is remarkably reminiscent of the episode "Mr. Monk Can't See A Thing." (Airdate: Feb 2006).

What's similar? Someone has been murdered, but that murder is covered up to look like an accidental death in a fire. Remarkably, in both, the victim is sitting in a position which indicates that there was someone else in the house. The killer left something behind, and realized it after he'd set the house on fire. Oh no! What's a killer to do? Why...go to the firehouse and borrow a fireman's jacket. Then he can enter the house unnoticed and retrieve that little piece of evidence that would tell who he was. In this book, Sparky gets in the way. In the episode, the older fireman and Monk. In short, it's a brilliant plot device; however, I felt that it was cheapened by the reuse later (especially so soon). I also felt that there was a bit here slightly recycled from Mr. Monk and the Missing Granny...supplanting Disher's feline allergy onto Monk .

Sure there are differences...and a lot of them. However, I really think that the method of murder and the method of the coverup of the murder being virtually recycled, is too much to be recycled. The cat allergy would not have annoyed me nearly as much had it not been for the recycled device. As both the book and the episode were written by the same individual, clearly this was done with foreknowledge. This was not a case of two people coming up with the same concept around the same time (which would have been a LOT more forgivable). Each book does have some interesting differences.

I do like the running monologue in Natalie's head, but I must agree with a previous reviewer about Natalie's focus on anatomy...it does come a bit from how a man must think a woman thinks, rather than how a woman actually thinks. This is something that tends to repeat itself also in Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii (though, thankfully, I've not noted that that one has been repeated in an episode yet).

I understand how difficult it can be to write stories based off of a television series. I've written fanfiction (not for Monk... I would not dare!), so I do recognize that following canon is not always easy. However, fanfiction is not written under the licenses of programming, and theorectically authorized by production. Fanfiction is not written by writers who do have the ability, authority, and responsibility to create the canon that the rest of us follow. I expect better of someone who writes the real thing, who writes the episodes. I expect Mr. Goldberg to know whether or not Monk is allergic to cats, rather than using cats as a convenient plot device. I expect Mr. Goldberg to come up with stories for his novels that I am not going to be seeing in next week's episodes. Mr. Goldberg is not writing fanfiction here...but this book sure reads like it. (Well written fanfiction, but fanfiction, nonetheless.)