Book Notices | Lost Hills by Lee Goldberg

Lee Goldberg, Lost Hills

Amazon   This is the first book in a new series by Lee Goldberg, author of a bajillion books, including the late Monk series, which I enjoyed a lot. This one is a police procedural focused on Eve Ronin, a newbie in the L.A. County Sheriff's Department's Robbery and Homicide Division, who got her position because of politics and unsought fame from a viral video she unwittingly starred in. This doesn't win her any friends in the department, but her seasoned partner, Duncan, has her back more often than not. Turns out she's good at what she does. She takes the lead in the investigation of a triple homicide and proves that the grit she showed in that viral video wasn't a one-off. She's also pretty clever. That sounds like it could be annoying: The new female cop shows everybody how great she is by making astute observations and out-performing the more experienced men. But it's not like that. Ronin is likable but flawed, smart, but credibly so. She makes mistakes, and her partner is usually the first to point them out. I like their interaction a lot. Unfortunately, he's due to retire in less than a year, which worries me about future books in the series: I want more of the two of them. Goldberg, like Duncan, is a seasoned pro. He makes writing look easy. Often his books are humorous, and they're often steeped in references to television and old Hollywood. This one is more serious than I'm used to from him--which is appropriate in this case and works very well. It does have a taste of Hollywood in it--the setting, certain aspects of the crime, and Eve's mother, a wannabe star. If I had to complain about anything in the book, it's that the mother comes off as a little cartoony in a story where that doesn't quite fit. I'm not usually a big fan of police procedurals, but I liked this one a lot, and I'm looking forward to the next in the series, Bone Canyon, which is due in early 2021.