
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.

A writer is murdered after sending Jessica a manuscript exposing a kidnapping scam, and Jessica's friend, private investigator Harry McGraw (Jerry Orbach) is caught near the body.

Jessica takes a teaching position in New York, gets an apartment and finds its previous tenant murdered.

A policeman-turned-professor challenges Jessica to solve a series of campus muggings that soon escalates to murder.

A friend (Bradford Dillman) is suspected of killing the author (Jessica Walter) who was writing an unauthorized biography of his wife.