In the end of The Bye Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case, when Columbo explains to Brandt (and to the viewer!) the solution of the gold pieces problem, he puts the chocolate bags onto a book which is so clearly visible that I often wondered whether it could have any significance whatsoever inside the story. Its title is Cannibal, and in smaller letters, a zoom indicated me its subtitle - A Deck Log Book.
Has anyone ever been interested in that detail?

Yes I have. I have also zoomed in on the book Mrs. Brandt was reading in bed near the end of the ep. I don't remember the name of it.

I thought I was the only one that did things like that. I actually used binoculars and could read it. The one the wife was reading couldn't find. But on another episode Columbo shows his badge and I could swear it said his first name was Frank. I love finding things on episodes I'm glad to know I'm not the only one

in one c-episode you get to see the music cassettes columbo has in his car, one of them is stephen stills...that made me believe that this book might be more than just a fake book title from a copyright free requisit compilation...in that scene a book title isnt necessary at all and the book itself looks realy kinda old and used, thats why i still believe that its got a purpose...

Well, I'd like to know about that! But tell me, aren't we kind of nuts??? I guess it's simply because we adore that episode.
I also zoomed in on the Tschaikovsky's record that Oliver Brandt plays on the Electrola, a lame effort because I'm not sure whether or not the conductor is Mravinsky.
I also wanted to know the name of the musical score set on the stand in the club library. As there is a violin lying on it, I assume it is a violin piece, but I am curious to know what it is. (I didn't even try to zoom in on this prop, because the two sheets are so blurred on my screen!)

I do love it, very much. I've said before that Oliver's "autobiographical" speech near the end of the ep is one of the best scenes in the whole series.

I now know how to handle the zoom better.
Vivian's book is entitled 'The Strange Death of ... Van ...'. Could you help me there, C Crisp?
Here is what is written on the record cover - just the names of the pieces, it is a sort of 'best of Tchaikovsky' (a BEST OF! - yuck):
THEMES FROM TCHAIKOVSKY
Violin Concerto
Andante cantabile (Symphony No. 5)
Love Theme Romeo and Juliet
"Pathetique" Symphony: Third Movement
Alas, no name of conductor is mentioned.
The colour of the ink on the music score is decidedly too light on my screen, and I can't read anything properly. It just seems to me that the first word of the piece title is Violin. And on the right page, there are pencilled scribbles (with a few touches of red) - a new evolving composition?

I think I'm on to something. But really, I would need to know the exact name of Vivian Brandt's book.
Again, Chas, I will greatly appreciate your help.

I captured and zoomed-in on Vivian's book with state-of-the-art software (better than the latest PhotoShop, for this purpose), and it is impossible to read the author's name -- we know only that the title is "The Strange Death of Dora Van De...."




I could find no book with this partial title in Google, nor on Amazon, AbeBooks, Alibris, or Ebay, which about exhausts my list of sources for old/obscure books. (And by the way, the same sources show nothing for "Cannibal - A Deck Log".) But maybe somebody else would like to take a crack at it.

Meanwhile, I can tell you that there is a whole cottage industry (more like a mini-mansion industry) of companies whose sole, full-time job is to research, for Hollywood studios, whether a name of a company, or person (or book) contemplated in a TV or movie script, exists in real life. (No studio wants to produce a show where the killer is the CEO of "McBurgers", only to find out later that there is a real "McBurgers".)

The purpose is to avoid either a lawsuit by somebody who does not appreciate their name being used, or an accusation of plugola where the actual owner of the name might appreciate it a bit too much. (If Diet Coke was shown on "Friends," this was legally above-board because Coke paid the producers or the network for it, as opposed to just slipping some cash to a cast member or a cameraman. For some reason, this makes a big legal difference, namely who gets the money.)

This leads me to suspect that there may also be a mini-industry of cranking out fake book jackets. But, perhaps somebody can discover this one as a real-life, forgotten book title.

Wow! That was an answer! Thank you for taking the time, Ted.
As far as 'Cannibal' and 'The Strange Death of Dora Van D...' are concerned, I doubt that they are real books. But it would be rather amusing to be sure.
'A mini-industry of cranking out fake book jackets,' eh? H'm, that's an idea!
Would the music score be the Kreutzer Sonata, by any chance? That would be almost too much to hope for!

Better late than never ...

There is indeed a sort of cottage industry that comes up with fake book titles (usually on dust jackets) for TV and film. Indeed, there are several in the Columbo series themselves. That said, there are several "real-life" books to be seen on bookcases in the background, etc, but these tend to be quite old volumes, dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, for example.

A Deck Log Book is a log for a ship or boat. Presumably Cannibal is the name of a boat, but I wouldn't want to sail in it!