
Mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher - a down-to-earth, middle-aged widow - ferrets out the criminals in idyllic Cabot Cove, Maine, which apparently is the murder capital of the United States for the show's 12-season run. Though while traveling, she uncovers a fair number of killers as well.

Seth Hazlitt's benefit concert to save the woods near Cabot Cove is endangered when the lead singer is permanently silenced.

Jessica investigates the reappearance of an heir who had been missing for over 20 years.

Details in a manuscript convince a young editor (Tracy Middendorf) that the author (Richard Beymer) kidnapped her 11 years earlier, but when the author is found dead, the editor becomes the primary suspect.

When the producer of a hit twenty-something series is murdered, Jessica does some directing of her own.