Columbo - short and unkempt, shapeless raincoat flapping open, unlit cigar in his hand - turns towards the murderer who is certain that this undistinguished plainclothesman will never see through his perfect crime. Then - "just one more thing" and the murderer realizes that his murder plot has unraveled.

Columbo, played by the marvelous Peter Falk, appeared as a made-for-television movie in 1968, then the long-running series in 1971 - and kept coming back over the decades. One of the finest detective series ever to appear on television, Columbo was created by William Link and his late collaborator Richard Levinson. With The Columbo Collection, Link has written 12 brilliant new stories in which murderers try to get away with murder but come up against the rumpled but unflappable Lieutenant Columbo.