On this episode of The Pink Smoke podcast, hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg cover a fictionalized take on the Manson Family, a beautiful actress caught in a web of violence & the seedy side of Hollywood. That’s right: we’re going deep on Columbo: The Helter Skelter Murders.

This continuation novel from 1994 by author William Harrington surprisingly manages to eschew total tastelessness and even guides the hosts from Columbo novices into budding super-fans. Get reeled in by the illiterate slogans scribbled in blood on the walls of a fabulous mansion, stay for the goofy limericks & descriptions of bowls of chili.