
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.
Jessica is asked to complete the last weeks of an expired congressman's term, and discovers politics is murder.
A former sorority sister asks Jessica's help in clearing the name of a respected college professor who has confessed to murder.
Jessica encounters murder when car trouble strands her and a fellow writer at a run-down truck stop owned by a disillusioned woman.
Jessica's former student publishes a tell-all novel with characters resembling Cabot Cove residents, but when a murder occurs that follows the book's plot, Jessica gets involved.