Showing posts with label lee goldberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lee goldberg. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Publication Day Review: Murder by Design: A Thriller by Lee Goldberg

  

Lee Goldberg’s Murder by Design: A Thriller is the first read in the new Edison Bixby series. It is also a bit weird and takes some time getting used to as the story unfolds. This is not your regular book from the author. Those who choose to stay with it will find a lot to like about the read.

 

Start with the basic idea of Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Now, make it contemporary. Now, replace Sherlock with the brilliant and often very rude, Edison Bixby. Bixby was a living legend in the LAPD. He solved murders and did it while being wealthy, eccentric, and a ton of style. He saw the world very differently. He saw a world where every crime, every human interaction, every behavior, could be traced back to the design around the person. That design of the building or whatever played a key role in whatever happened.

 

Then he took a bullet to the head. He survived the traumatic brain injury mostly intact. He still sees everything and everyone being influenced by the design of everything around them. That bullet did not take that from him. It did take his job with the LAPD and any mental filters he had. It also left him with a need for a driver and somebody to try and smooth over the ruffled feathers of others that Bixby encounters. Watson, if you will.

 

These days he solves crimes for Triax Global Insurance. He needs a driver, gopher, communicator, and everything else. He needs all that and more bundled up in his Watson.

 

Triax may have found his Watson in an actor that looking for his break in Hollywood. The guy gets auditions, even gets cast in commercials for various drugs, and then brings in his idea of the character he is playing in his role. He creates elaborate backstories and storylines for the minute or so he is on screen in a commercial. He overthinks each one to an incredible degree as he sees the world around him full of characters playing their respective roles. His elaborations tend to annoy directors and others and that results in being fired a lot. He refuses to change his behavior as he believes he is building hos craft.

 

Bixby sees the world as driven by design in very way possible. Some designs make crime easier and, in a way, encourage it. Our narrator, the actor, sees the world as a stage, literally, where everyone is at all times a player in a role. They make quite the duo and before long are working increasingly complex cases.

 

Such as the main case of the book where a person died at the mall. In theory, it is a simple slip and fall where a woman died because she became impaled on exposed rebar. Bixby is sure that it is far more than a slip and fall. He sees it as an ingenious murder and intends to solve the case.

 

Murder by Design: A Thriller is a complicated tale and far different in style, tone, and in any other way than the normal mystery read. Humor is frequently present as are descriptive explanations of how our everyday world is designed to influence our behavior in various ways. Several cases are worked in the read and there are numerous complications. It is also a read that will get you looking at your everyday world far differently. Especially if you drive by a mall.

 


Recommended.

 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4boFMLC

 

 

My digital ARC came from Thomas & Mercer, by way of NetGalley, with no expectation of a positive review.


Kevin R. Tipple ©2026

Sunday, October 12, 2025

Review: Fallen Star by Lee Goldberg

  
This comes out Tuesday...


Fallen Star by Lee Goldberg is the sixth novel in the Eve Ronin series that began in January 2020 with Lost Hills. As the author points out in his note at the beginning of the book, there are major spoilers in the read for two of his books. He does not mention the fact that there are also other spoilers for previous books, though they are not as significant as the ones he cites.

 

He also mentions in his note that reading about Duncan eating all the time in this series makes some folks hungry. He suggests that one should have some carrots or celery on hand for those moments. How eating rabbit food is going to work when Duncan is eating a breakfast sandwich and hashbrowns, a burger and fries, and other great meals is never explained. Maybe that is being saved for the next book. It could also be an unsolvable case.

 

It also comes to mind that a book that featured crime locations mentioned in the series as well as food locations that Duncan has eaten at and thereby endorsed, would also make a great book for those in the Los Angeles area. Maybe something the author and publisher should consider. Just a thought.

 

Homicide Detective Eve Ronin of the Los Angeles County Sherrif’s Department is looking forward to a quiet evening at home with her boyfriend, Daniel Brooks. That is once they get through the grocery shopping. A chore he seems to enjoy and one that she ready to have finished on this drizzly Sunday evening in early November. Pay for the stuff, get out, and get the heck home. At least that was the plan until, as they were working their way through checkout, she noticed a numerous cars swarming the parking lot.

 

There has been a string of flash-mob smash-and-grabs across the area and the beauty store next to the grocery store where they are has been hit before. Homicide Detective Ronin thinks it is about to happen again. As the hooded and masked occupants step out of the many cars and start heading for the store carrying trash bags for their planned loot, she knows she can’t stop them easily as she is far outnumbered. After getting backup started her way, she does the next best thing.

 

She proceeds to move from car to car, shooting tires along the way, making the numerous vehicles undriveable for the moment. With no way of leaving as they exited the store, short of their own two feet, a number of the thieves surrender immediately, while others attempt to flee and are soon caught.

 

Of course, in the aftermath, Eve Ronin is in trouble yet again as her actions violated numerous policies. It is not the first time her actions have violated policies. She also didn’t see any other way to stop the thefts from happening and it got the job done.

 

(It also caused this reader to laugh out loud like crazy.)

 

Suspended, and probably facing a quick termination and the end of her career, she is quickly returned to duty by Sheriff Richard Lansing. A political animal and a mayoral candidate, the optics of what she did can’t be ignored. Videos of her actions went viral and the people of Los Angeles are expressing how thrilled they are with what she did. For a department that has been through some things, Eve Ronin is again generating good publicity, and they need it.

 

That means she is back at work that Monday morning when a fifty-five-gallon plastic drum was pulled onshore at the Malibu Lagoon. Once he got it on shore and out of the way, the lifeguard went and opened the drum. What he found means that Homicide Detective Eve Ronin and her partner, Duncan “Donuts” Pavone have a murder case. This is the first of several deaths and other cases they will handle in Fallen Star by Lee Goldberg.

 

The latest installment in this series is another very good read. It contains numerous references to previous books in this series as well as events in the Sharpe and Walker series and both the arson investigators are well involved here. As a result, if you are like me and have read all the material, you are ready for this one. If you have not, make sure you read this series, at the very least, before embarking here.

 

A great book in a great series, Fallen Star by Lee Goldberg, is definitely worth your time.

 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4ltUWlm

 

 

 

My digital ARC reading copy came from the publisher, Thomas & Mercer, through NetGalley, with no expectation of a review.

 

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2025

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

Publication Day Review: Hidden in Smoke by Lee Goldberg


Hidden in Smoke by Lee Goldberg is the latest in the very enjoyable Sharpe & Walker series that began in Malibu Burning. If you have not read that book, you really need to as a major character from that book is resurrected here. In fact, as the author note at the start of this read explains, the ending of that book is addressed here on page one.

 

Danny Cole is alive and well in Japan, though he might be a tad bored. After several surgeries, he has a different face and has various names to go by as he moves about. The 35-year-old thief and grifter is retired and is, per doctor’s orders, trying to find inner peace and tranquility as he sits in the bathhouse. Any hope of that is gone when Los Angeles County Sheriff Department Arson Investigator Andrew Walker lumbers into the water next to him.

 

Walker isn’t there to arrest him. In fact, Walker wants Danny Cole to finish the job he started. If he does and gets even for what happened, he will help Walker as a certain drug price will come way down. A drug that Walker’s young son desperately needs to control his seizures.

 

For Danny, it is a chance to once again, experience the thrill of his old life. It will take months to pull off this heist. Doing so is one of the two main storylines in the book.

 

The other is dealing with the aftermath of a string of fires across Los Angeles. A number of fires has been set and caused damage at car ports in West Hollywood. The car ports had apartment buildings above them which provided fuel for the car port fire. Fire after fire happened and Walker and Waller and Sharpe are working the case when a catastrophic freeway fire pulls them onto another case.

 

A portion of I-10 in downtown Los Angeles burns and the freeway is severely damaged. Various materials were stored under the multilane overpass as the area was subleased to a business which also leased the area out to others. That resulted in folks running their small businesses under it. There was also a homeless encampment nearby and underneath the bridge.

 

With such a mix of fuels, it isn’t surprising a horrific multi alarm fire erupted. It burned so hot that the freeway in that section is severely damaged and will have to be repaired to the cost of millions and considerable time.

 

It has resulted in massive gridlock and a city wide and beyond traffic nightmare for residents. LA County Sheriff Richard Lansing reassigns Walker and Sharpe to the case as he sees a chance to score points with the public after they are tasked with determining what happened. He wants the fire investigated fast and, as he wants to be Mayor, is using, Walker and Sharpe to restore his scandal filled reputation. It’s complicated and Sharpe is sure that no matter what they find and do, they are going to get burned.

 

Not to mention, they have a case already that they have put a lot of legwork in on and have identified the suspect. Not that it matters as Lansing wants the best on the case, and Walker and Sharpe are the best. Seeing that other case to the finish line is not an option, so they get to work on the freeway fire, and find far more than expected.

 

Hidden in Smoke is another complicated and fast moving solidly good read. There are many moving parts here and they slowly come together as Danny works on his heist and Walker and Sharpe work their cases.

 

Not only is the book an enjoyable read, it makes you think as you drive under the overpasses in your city what could, potentially, happen. That fact alone is more than enough to creep you out.


For another perspective on the book, be sure to read Lesa's review at Lesa's Book Critiques.


Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3W5FH7p 

 

My reading copy came from the publisher, Thomas & Mercer, by way of NetGalley, with no expectation of a review. 

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2025

Monday, November 11, 2024

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Malibu Burning by Lee Goldberg


Malibu Burning by Lee Goldberg (Thomas & Mercer, 2023) finally drifted up my TBR stack and I tackled it over the weekend. I didn’t know anything about the book and I was delighted to see that the primary characters are arson investigators. I have wondered for years why arson investigators are not considered interesting enough to feature as leads in crime fiction. Homicide detectives, private eyes, department store detectives, insurance investigators, even food inspectors and railroad detectives, but I don’t remember seeing arson investigators as anything but incidental characters. Much of what they do is based on science, and I can understand that analyzing burn patterns and checking for accelerants does not make a scintillating read but I always thought it was fascinating.

Walter Sharpe is an old hand in the arson shop. He draws Andrew Walker as his new partner. Walker is a former U.S. Marshal, a bit of a cowboy, but his pregnant wife pressured him to find a job that would bring him home at night and arson seemed to be a likely alternative. With the wildfires in southern California never-ending and the winds whipping the smallest spark into an inferno that consumes acres of forest and millions of dollars in real estate, the arson department did not lack for work.

Danny Cole is a likable and talented thief, aided in his chosen profession by a significant degree of intelligence and creativity. His attention is drawn to the mega mansions in Malibu. These over-the-top residences (20 bedrooms! 40 bathrooms!) are full of valuable collectibles, art, jewelry, and cash. He decides that a well-placed wildfire would force the residents to flee, leaving the contents of their homes open to plunder.

The narrative moves back and forth between the investigators and the thieves. Along the way it draws attention to the political maneuvering that directs scarce fire protection resources to the wealthy and away from those who need them more. An informative thread describes the California convict firefighting program in which prisoners have the option to join a firefighting unit instead of living in a cell. A quick internet search says at least 14 states have programs that use inmates as firefighting resources and that they are considered essential in rural areas.

With over 50 books and multiple popular television series to his credit Goldberg is a master at character development, consistent pacing, and inventive plotting. I liked it!

The second adventure of Sharpe and Walker was released in September 2024 and the third is scheduled for April 2025. A promising new series. Starred review from Library Journal.




·         Publisher: ‎Thomas & Mercer (September 1, 2023)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Hardcover: ‎304 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎166250067X

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1662500671

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link:  https://amzn.to/3Csm2qW


Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Review: Ashes Never Lie by Lee Goldberg


Ashes Never Lie by Lee Goldberg picks up about a year after the events of Malibu Burning. This second book in the series also works in Eve Ronin, and her partner, Duncan Pavone. It is also a really good read.

 

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department arson detectives Walter Sharpe and Andrew Walker have pretty much finished at one fire scene where the fire crew is pulled off to go fight a house fire in the nearby Twin Lakes housing development. The house is unoccupied. There is also plenty of ground fuel, thanks to the weather. If firefighters don’t stop the fire now, it could go through the housing development, get into the bordering Santa Susanna Pass State Park and then take off for nearby Calabasas and the Santa Monica Mountains. The last time the fire roared through the Santa Monica Mountains, Sharpe and Wlaker barely escaped with their lives.

 

Sharpe, as senior investigator and still teaching Walker, insists they have to check out the house fire. Walker doesn’t see much point, as they have not been called in to investigate, but Sharpe wants to see it because fire guys flush away evidence and won’t know if it is arson or not.

 

When they arrive, they find firefighters hard at work fighting a fire that has fully engulfed the two-story home. The house is completely empty and yet is burning like crazy. Power had only been turned on that morning and there were no workman inside or around it. In fact, nobody had been working on it. The weather was fine as it was dry and clear. So, the questions are—What caused the fire and what caused it to spread so fast and burn so hot?

 

While the crew works, Sharpe and Walker look at a nearby home that is identical to the one that is burning. Sharpe has some questions after the house tour, questions that are reinforced when Captain Guyette tells him it must have been an electrical as there were multiple ignition points also over the house next to the electric sockets, light switches, and lighting. Sharpe isn’t buying it.

 

Not that he can investigate much right now, as he and Walker are suddenly pulled off to go to a house fire in Calabasas where there is a body.

 

LASD Homicide Detective Eve Ronin and Duncan Pavone are also there and waiting for them. The four gear up and go into the house. It is believed that Patrick Lopresti was home alone and is the dead person in the fire. The question Eve wants to know is where he got murdered, killed himself, or was committing arson and screwed up?

 

That question is soon answered in an unexpected way and becomes one of two complicated storylines in the book. The first being the house fire scene they were working before being pulled here.

 

Ashes Never Lie is the second book in the Sharpe and Walker series and a very good read. Complicated and fast moving it roars along at a rapid pace to a satisfying and explosive conclusion. In short, a fun read, and very much well worth your time. 


Make sure you check out Lesa Holstine’s review here. 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4gjCcm5

 

My reading copy was a digital ARC from the publisher, Thomas & Mercer, by way of NetGalley.


Kevin R. Tipple ©2024

Friday, February 02, 2024

Barry Ergang's FFB Review: Mr. Monk Is Miserable by Lee Goldberg

 
From the archive... 

In the previous book in this series of original novels based on the television series "Monk," the obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk learns that Dr. Kroger plans to attend a conference in Germany. The idea of not having his three sessions a week with the doctor is overwhelming to Monk so, as his indispensable assistant Natalie Teeger explains in Mr. Monk is Miserable, "in an act of desperation and insanity that will probably go down in the annals of stalking history, Monk decided to follow his psychiatrist to Germany." This, of course, led to him solving a couple of murders and nearly getting himself and Natalie killed in the process.

 

Determined to make a real vacation out of the trip, and because Paris, to which she has a sentimental attachment, isn't that far away, Natalie blackmails Monk into making a trip there. The flight is comical for the reader, if not for Natalie and the other passengers—especially the one who is murdered, "It's always murder. Nobody dies of natural causes around Adrian Monk." Monk solves it, of course (in the novels there are always some murders unrelated to the primary one for Monk to solve in passing), and upon landing earns the respect and admiration of Chief Inspector Le Roux and his assistant, Inspector Gadois.

 

In Paris, Natalie and Monk do a lot of sightseeing, Monk often making a nuisance of himself in the course of things. But he stuns Natalie when he tells her he wants to visit  the city's famous sewers. This is the man who, after all, is "afraid of germs, splinters, coloring books, mixed nuts, lint, curly hair, sleeveless T-shirts, balls of yarn, dust bunnies, Neil Diamond, bird droppings, untucked shirts, granola, Chia Pets, and so many other things that he's created a list of his phobias that spans several leather-bound volumes with footnotes, historical references, photographs, diagrams, and a detailed index." The visit, which is not uneventful, prompts Natalie to take him for a visit to the catacombs beneath the city.

 

The catacombs have served for several centuries as a crypt for millions of bodies and have become a tourist attraction. Its passageways are lined with walls of different types of bones. It takes an Adrian Monk to spot, amidst thousands of others, the one skull that is out of place because the fillings in its teeth are only a decade or so old. And, of course, the man was murdered. An angry and frustrated Natalie knows her vacation has ended and Monk's has just begun.

 

Nevertheless, she is determined to participate in more of the many delights Paris has to offer, and to that end makes a dinner reservation at Toujours Nuit, a restaurant she read about back in the States, a restaurant that provides a unique and sensual dining experience she can't tell Monk about in advance lest he refuse to go. Shortly after they are seated, they are joined by a woman named Sandrine who is there unescorted. It is not long before she quietly tells Monk, "I know who you found." It is not long after this that dinner ends with a thunk: Sandrine's lifeless but not knifeless body hitting the floor.

 

Added to the need to determine the identity of the murder victim from the catacombs and an investigation of the circumstances that led to his death, suddenly Adrian Monk has an impossible murder, complete with locked-room conundrum, on his hands.

 

What makes it impossible? About this and other story factors I've been deliberately vague so as not to spoil the experience for readers. I must add, however, that any veteran reader/viewer of mystery/suspense/thriller stories will know immediately how one aspect of the "impossibility" was effected and thus subsequently have no trouble identifying the culprit the moment a particular item is mentioned. In this regard the book is no competition for the bafflers of John Dickson Carr, Hake Talbot, Clayton Rawson or Edward D. Hoch, among others.

 

Readers who are detective story purists, as well as those who are not fans of or who have never seen the television series, might complain, and not unjustly, that there are too many "travelogue" passages in Mr. Monk is Miserable that slow the story and detract from the investigative portions. Since I have always loved the program and have enjoyed the previous books in the series, I barreled through this one, occasionally chuckling out loud at Monk's antics, of which there are many, and did not find the aforementioned passages objectionable.

 

As usual, Lee Goldberg does an outstanding job of capturing the voices and intonations of the recurrent characters. I can hear Traylor Howard as Natalie in both narrative and dialogue, and in dialogue Tony Shaloub as Monk, Ted Levine as Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, and Jason Gray-Stanford as Lieutenant Randy Disher.

 

It is far from the best in the series, but I give Goldberg points for attempting a less-than-stellar impossible crime story while providing a mystery that can stand alongside some of the works of Jonathan Latimer, Craig Rice, and Donald E. Westlake for its comedic value.

 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3SouNGR

 

 

Barry Ergang ©2013, 2024

Some of Derringer Award winner Barry Ergang’s work can be found at Amazon and Smashwords.

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Lesa's Book Critiques: DREAM TOWN BY LEE GOLDBERG

 Lesa's Book Critiques: DREAM TOWN BY LEE GOLDBERG

Review: Dream Town (Eve Ronin Book Five) by Lee Goldberg

 

As Dream Town by Lee Goldberg begins, Eve Ronin is living a nightmare. She made a bargain with the devil and now the reality has hit as she is being forced to watch how a film crew is handling her real life recent past. She is the youngest homicide detective in the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and is on scene where an incident involving her took place.

 

If that is not bad enough, her estranged father, Vince Nyby, is the director. He wants back in her life and one way is by manipulating their every encounter. Of course, her mom is also good at that and has a minor role in the first episode. Eve Ronin wanted nothing to do with any of this, but at least this way, she has some say as to how this fictionalized life of her is portrayed.

 

Her partner, Duncan “Donuts” Pavone is on set with her as he decided not to retire just yet. He also is his own one-man crime wave on the catering provided on set. He is enjoying the food as well as Ronin’s disgust with the trappings of Hollywood.

 

Soon they leave and are headed back to their station, Lost Hills, when Pavone takes a phone call from Captain Mel Dubois. He recently took over and the fact he is calling Pavone directly means something is up. Pavone soon explains that Dubois called because somebody was out hiking with his dogs in the nearby upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve and the dogs found what appear to be human bones. The land was a ranch at one time and now is a state park. The open space is also a vital wildlife corridor that links the Santa Monica Mountains to other mountain ranges to the north.

 

Somebody from their forensics department, Nas Baker, is already on scene as she was summoned from a nearby subdivision where she was working another unrelated case. She believes the bones are human, but they are going to need anthropologist. Good thing Dr. Daniel Brooks is also around and can take a look.

 

If the bones are human, it could be related to gang activity. Such gang activity is a known problem and one that leads to body dumps in relatively isolated places. That could be what happened here as Dr. Brooks has quickly determined that the dogs found two leg bones and that death was about two years ago. He also has determined that both leg bones are left ones. That means they have at least two victims. He also believes that both were probably male. Since the dogs were running free of their leashes while the owner stood some distance away where he could not see them, the bones could have come from anywhere nearby making the area to be searched massive. Finding the rest is going to take some time.

 

Between that crime scene and being assigned to the filming locations for the first episode of the new series on her life, as well as the aftereffects of events in Movieland and moving into her new house, Ronin has a lot going on. But, this is Los Angeles and that means when a celeb is killed, she as the celebrity homicide detective, is going to handle the case.

 

She gets the early morning before dawn phone call, Kitty Winslow was murdered at her home in the compound in Hidden Hills. Fortunately, Ronin’s new house is just minutes away and she quickly arrives on scene. One of the stars of the reality television show, Life with the Winslows, the group is rich thanks to dad, Caleb Winslow, being a star of various westerns. Like other such “reality” shows, nearly all of what is portrayed is fake and heavily orchestrated thanks to script writers and others. Now the major star of the show is dead and Ronin and Pavone have yet another case to deal with.

 

This latest in the Eve Ronin series is another good one. Many moving parts are in play here in this complex police procedural that pulls the reader along at a rapid pace. So too is the occasional flash of humor or sardonic whit as a character comments on the players and the myths that Hollywood spins for our viewing pleasure.

 

As always, one could start here, but like any good series that builds on itself, it is best to start from the beginning. In this case, begin with Lost Hills and work your way forward. You will be glad you did. Doing so will also make Dream Town an even more lively and entertaining read than it already is. 


Make sure you read Lesa Holstine's review today as well.


For some reason, the Amazon Associate image box no longer works, even on posts like this one, that were set up weeks ago. So, please go here to pick it up.

 

My reading copy was an ARC from the publisher, Thomas & Mercer, via NetGalley.

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2023