TONIGHT ON MURDER SHE WROTE, Jessica Fletcher is gonna tell us a story. 

In an unprecedented turn of events, our mystery writing sleuth (Angela Lansbury) is taking a day off from actual bodies and clues, to instead actually do some work. She's proofreading her new novel, MURDER IN A MINOR KEY, in her robe and slippers, and, for some reason, we've been invited to watch. 

The story takes place largely at a college, where a student (Paul Clemens) accuses his professor (George Grizzard) of stealing his music and selling it to a Broadway show without giving him credit. When the professor ends up a corpse, said student is added to the list of suspects that includes The Wife (Karen Grassie), the Vice Chancellor (Tom Hallick), the Rival (Rene Auberjonis), the Producer (Herb Edelman), and anyone else who may have hated the man (hint: lots of people). 

Our Fletcher proxy is Shaun Cassidy, who, alongside Dinah Manoff, attempts to get his friend off the hook. Throw in some campus unrest, missing manuscripts, secret affairs, attempted burglary, and something to do with what light blinks when what phone rings, and it's all otherwise the usual... without Jessica. 

Petra and Viktor break down the theoretically straightforward plot that we're supposed to follow and solve alongside our heroes, as per the writer herself. We're grateful to have her as a guide, though, because we're not sure we would ever have made the connection without her. 

While season 3 has hurled surprises at us, this episode, without Jessica grilling the suspects, is an uneven change of pace. Familiar faces like Paris Vaughan, Scott Jacoby, and the particularly charming Manoff keep us going another week, and now that we know the ending of the new book, we can brag about it at the water cooler that we got it right from the source.