Monk Welcome to Monk. If you have any questions about Monk, please read below. Enjoy Monk and please tell your friends!

Monk was a brilliant homicide detective working for the San Francisco Police Department until his wife Trudy died in a car bomb attack in 1997 while picking up cough medicine for Ambrose. Monk suffered a nervous breakdown and became a shut-in, refusing to leave his house for three years. With the help of practical nurse Sharona Fleming (Bitty Schram), he was finally able to leave the house. He began to perform consulting work for the police on particularly difficult cases.

Captain Leland Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) and Lieutenant Randall "Randy" Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford), call on Monk when they can't crack a case. Stottlemeyer is often infuriated by Monk's disorder, but respects his friend and former partner's amazing observational abilities, as does Disher. Monk's obsessive attention to detail allows him to spot tiny discrepancies, find patterns, and make connections that everyone else in an investigation misses. Monk continues to search for information about his wife's death, the one case he has been unable to solve.

In the third season, Sharona decides to re-marry her ex-husband and moves to New Jersey. Natalie Teeger (Traylor Howard), a single mother with a daughter about twelve years old, is soon hired as Monk's new assistant.

Monk is almost never described as having OCD. Sometimes the characters go out of their way not to mention it, even to avoid an inconvenient misunderstanding. For example, in one episode, Monk shakes the hand of two white women, then a black man, then wipes his hands. Monk and Sharona allow this to be taken as evidence of racism rather than explain his disorder. Natalie has referred to him as "particular" and "persnickety" rather than explaining the true extent of his problems.