From Publishers Weekly
The second hard-copy appearance of TV's scruffy Lieutenant Columbo is a wickedly successful mystery that's based on a Manson Family copycat killing and includes Charles Manson wannabes and a few of his aging followers. Twenty-five years after the infamous 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders (Columbo was the third homicide detective on the scene), millionaire retailer Yussef Khoury and his mistress surreptitiously enter the elegant Khoury home on Mulholland Drive. Sometime later, an anonymous phone call sends the police, including Columbo, to the house where Yussef's wife, Arlene; her lover, a thieving production designer for Khoury's film company; and the houseboy lie dead of multiple stab wounds, with the words Healter Skelter and All Piggys Die written in blood on the wall. Yussef, arriving after the cops, implicates his wife's secretary, Puss Dogwood, who was once a teenage member of Manson's family. Pitted against suave and wealthy villains, the rumpled Columbo bumbles his way straight through the film industry, posh retail trade, scuba-diving clubs and Manson Family lore to keep readers enthralled. With solid plotting, fully fleshed-out characters and dry humor, Harrington's series, begun with Columbo: The Grassy Knoll , is prime-time entertainment. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Yussef "Joe" Khoury, owner of a posh Southern California department store, has become a movie producer. He's in love with Kimberly Dana, who will star in his next film, if it gets made--there's a bit of a problem with Khoury's wife, Arlene, who wants a divorce. When Arlene and her lover are brutally murdered, the police find graffiti written in the victims' blood, recalling the Manson killings 25 years earlier. And one of Manson's former disciples works in Khoury's office. It's all a little too pat for Lieutenant Columbo, of the popular TV show. Wrapped in his rumpled raincoat and gnawing on his omnipresent cigar, he picks apart the case against the prime suspect while zeroing in on Khoury and his movie-star lover. We know who, what, when, how, and why from the start. The fun is watching Columbo--polite, oblique and seemingly distracted--disassemble the "perfect" crime while playing cat and mouse with his suspects. If readers like the TV show, they'll enjoy the capably written book, which is full of sly digs at the posh L.A. scene. Those who like their killers revealed on the last page had best stay away. Wes Lukowsky


From Kirkus Reviews
Peter Falk meets Charles Manson, right? Well, not exactly: The rumpled detective isn't really played by the TV actor, though he sure looks and sounds like him, and he meets Manson only once, briefly--not counting the time back in 1969 when (we're told) he was part of the original Manson family investigation. Unlike Lt. Columbo's hardcover debut (Columbo: The Grassy Knoll, 1993), this cheatingly titled case doesn't reopen a real-life crime and doesn't involve the Manson family except in the most peripheral sense: as a cover for a very ordinary copycat murder timed for the silver anniversary of Sharon Tate's death. Taking advantage of the fact that Cathy Murphy--baptized Puss Dogood when she threw in with Manson 25 years ago--is his hated wife Arlene's secretary, LA boutique king Yussef Khoury plots with his own secretary/lover Kimberly Dana to kill Arlene and her paramour and pin the blame on poor Puss. Luckily for the Manson class of '69, the inimitable Columbo is on the scene, imperturbably writing out his grocery list, trying once again to qualify with his own .38, mumbling about taking scuba lessons, and incidentally nailing the conspirators while providing his faithful TV audience whatever thrills they can get from cheering ``hotter, hotter'' (his inquiries about a Harry Winston choker supposedly stolen from Arlene's nightstand) and ``colder, colder'' (an interminable subplot involving Khoury's film production company) en route to a windup without a single new surprise and an epilogue cribbed from Dragnet. Colder, Lieutenant. Ice cold. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Wickedly successful...Prime-time entertainment."--Publishers Weekly

"That rumpled raincoat is as convincing in the mind's eye as it is on the small screen."--New York Daily News

"Harrington outdoes himself with this one--lots of twists and turns, lots of excitement, and a first-rate mystery to solve. A dazzling addition to this exciting new series."--Mystery Scene



Book Description
The wife of a wealthy Los Angeles businessman is found murdered in her bed with her lover, with the words Helter Skelter painted in blood on the walls. Columbo, America's favorite TV detective, must ask himself whether the horror of the Manson himself is ordering a fresh new round of atrocities from his San Quentin prison cell?

To solve this case Columbo will have to face evil incarnate: the madman known simply as "Charlie."

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The wife of a wealthy Los Angeles businessman is found murdered in bed with her lover, with the words Helter Skelter painted in blood on the walls. Columbo, America's favorite TV detective, must ask himself whether the horror of the Manson Family's massacres could return - and whether Manson himself is ordering a fresh new round of atrocities from his San Quentin prison cell?