Columbo investigates the apparent drowning of a famous painter's first wife.

When Dian Hunter, the publisher of the men's magazine "Bachelor's World", wants to sell her stock to a media tycoon, her adulterous partner Sean Brantley objects. Soon afterwards, Miss Hunter apparently disappears on a London-bound flight.

Columbo is assigned to the case of a murder that was made to look like a suicide. After noticing some loose ends, he asks a lawyer and a Congressman to clear up problems with the investigation.

A woman who blames Columbo for the loss of her husband sets out to get back at him.

The handsome, charming junior partner in a dental group run by his father-in-law is a bad husband and a bad gambler deeply in debt. Facing divorce, ostracism and worse, he devises a cunning plan.

A successful writer of romance novels who is involved with a young, ambitious womanizer, is found shot to death in her Malibu home.