Tony Shalhoub, shown in an undated publicity photo, stars as obsessive-compulsive private eye Adrian Monk in the new USA Network whodunit series "Monk," which airs 9 p.m. Fridays.

Having exhausted the bulk of my crime solving mental energies on the ''Encyclopedia Brown'' paperback mysteries of my youth, my ability for figuring out whodunnits on a more adult level has never, well, fully developed.

In fact, when trying to puzzle the perpetrator of a given crime on the small or silver screens, I've always relied more on my keen sense of character than the actual clues provided. Of course, as any good police detective might tell you, this approach is not a surefire winner.

Nope, clues are a much better start, and one man who knows his clues is Adrian Monk, titular star of the new USA Network series ''Monk,'' which debuted last Friday night (the 2-hour pilot is being again aired today at 3 p.m. -- set your VCRs before you go to work!).

Played by the extremely gifted character actor Tony Shalhoub, Monk is a San Francisco police detective who lost his badge and his ability to control his obsessive-compulsive disorder after he couldn't solve the murder of his own wife. And let me tell you, nobody does obsessive-compulsive like Shalhoub. He's the master.

I will allow that the premise seems more likely to be found in a Farrelly brothers movie script than a TV police drama, but ''Monk'' does a good job of walking the fine line of comedy and tragedy, especially when it comes to portraying the seriousness of Adrian Monk's mental disorder. There are times when the show's producers want you to see Shalhoub's portrayal as just on the edge of slapstick, and other times when they want you to wonder how in the heck he solves crimes, let alone makes it through a day dictated by all the irrational routines he has so fully incorporated into it.

Luckily he has practical nurse Sharona Fleming by his side. Played by Bitty Schram (of a ''A League of Their Own'' fame), Nurse Fleming is the Bat Girl to Monk's seriously addled Batman, for if she did not constantly keep him on track by distracting him from his very own distractions, well he'd probably hole himself up in his apartment to constantly monitor the on/off status of his various appliances.

But aside from the premise, and the quality of the main actors affected by it, the show in and of itself is a fun, clue-driven mystery, leading you to believe that if you could channel just a little bit of Adrian Monk's savant-styled intellect, there might be a chance to solve the crime before he does.

In that sense, the setup very much reminds me of those very same ''Encyclopedia Brown'' stories I loved so much. In fact, I was able to successfully ferret out the ne'er do well in the pilot episode, but only because he (or she, if you haven't watched yet) truly seemed like the kind of punk that would get off on murder. The elements that actually linked the crook to the crime, well, I left those to Monk figure out for me.

''Mon,'' which airs Fridays at 9 p.m., might be the show that puts the USA Network on the map, and which finally makes Tony Shalhoub a household name. You know he was the taxi driver guy on ''Wings,'' right?

Sam Bishop can be reached at Sam_Bishop@yahoo.com