Trace of Murder has always been one of my guilty pleasures and is an enjoyable story with a neat little twist with the coffee.

It does contain my least favourite line in any Columbo story:

"Officer find that cat. That cat may be the only witness to this terrible crime"

I've always thought that Pat is one of the most callous murderers in the series. He takes his time to talk to his victim and given the delay in pulling the trigger his victim is well aware that he's about to be shot.

Shera Denise does a great job of playing the calculating mistress.

As I was (mentally) going over her roles in the series, I noticed a certain pattern:yum: ...

Fade In to Murder - somebody's girlfriend (I forget who?)
Murder Under Glass - killer's girlfriend
Murder, a Self Portrait - killer's wife
Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star - killer's accomplice
Undercover - ? (I've only seen this once and forget almost everything about it:confused: )
A Trace of Murder - killer's girlfriend/accomplice

While the real-live "Mrs. Columbo" always did good work on the show in supporting parts (her part in "Self Portrait" is my personal favorite), I'm not sure she had the acting chops to go toe-to-toe with Columbo for a full episode.

In undercover, she was the owner of the Ferguson art gallery.

Shera going one on one with Columbo would be an uneven match. In every single role she is a bit ditzy. So I think Columbo would have had no trouble getting her to either confess to....(whatever she did) or completely destroy any allibi she would come up with. Good topic.