I was watching an old Columbo episode, “Etude in Black,” in which conductor Alex Benedict murders his star pianist Jenifer Welles, to prevent her from revealing their secret love affair.

As a musician myself, and knowing a little something about the piano, I thought it might be fun to rewrite one of the scenes of this episode, thusly:

Columbo: I’m very upset by this Jenifer Welles thing.

Alex Benedict: Yes. So am I.

Columbo: You know I was up half the night. I couldn’t sleep. I kept going over it in my mind. I couldn’t figure it out: why, why, why would a girl like this, young, beautiful, talented girl with everything to live for, why does she take her life like that?

Today, I thought I’d do the same thing, with my own 4 favorites. Except that aside from the original episodes, I’m also including any episode run to date, including the made-for-TV movies produced in 1989 and following.

First, a quick shout out to K., who sent me an inspiring email about my recent blog posts and how interesting they were. Thanks so much! I don’t think readers (myself included) realize how good it makes a writer feel when you tell him you enjoy something he’s written. Me, all smiles!