Lost hills

Has anybody noticed that Lee Goldberg, along with turning out offbeat thrillers like True Fiction (2018) that verge on parody, is also quite good when he plays the genre straight? Solid evidence is here in his latest, a cop novel so good it makes much of the old guard read like they're going through the motions until they can retire. Tyro cop Eve Ronin vaulted to the top of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department when a video of her lowering the boom on a nasty film star went viral. Now she must do two jobs at once: solve crimes while coping with jealous coworkers. The scene is a blood-soaked home with, strangely, no bodies. Eve uses technology to tell everyone, including us, what's happened and who the killer is early on. The challenge is proving it, and that involves interpreting anomalies, like a severed cord and a missing pillowcase. Detecting prowess aside, the real appeal here is Goldberg's lean prose, which imbues just-the-facts procedure with remarkable tension and cranks up to a stunning description of a fire that was like ""Christmas in hell.""--Don Crinklaw Copyright 2019 Booklist

Deputy Eve Ronin, the heroine of this nimble, sure-footed series launch from bestseller Goldberg (Killer Thriller), was promoted to homicide detective after she became something of a celebrity due to a popular YouTube video of her arresting an aggressive Hollywood actor. Ronin turns a deaf ear to the resentful remarks by coworkers in the Lost Hills station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, an agency engulfed in scandal, and proves her worth when called to investigate a possible murder at a suburban home. Blood-soaked carpets and crimson streaks on the walls suggest the occupants, a single mother and her two children, were stabbed to death and dismembered in the house. The absence of bodies allows speculation that it could be an abduction case, not a homicide. Courage, perseverance, and a reckless disregard for danger enable Ronin to discover what really happened. The action builds to a thrilling, visually striking climax. Readers will cheer Ronin every step of the way. (Jan.)

Veteran TV writer and fiction collaborator Goldberg (Killer Thriller, 2019, etc.) auditions a tough, ambitious rookie LA County detective determined to ride a triple murder hardif it doesn't destroy her career first.After stepping up when she was off duty to take down an action-movie star who was smacking his girlfriend around, Eve Ronin suddenly found herself catapulted to the county sheriff's Robbery-Homicide Division, where the cases are high profile and her male peers are low tolerant. Minutes after she and Detective Duncan Pavone, her older, fatter, more dispassionate partner, shrug off a borderline killing that really belongs to the LAPD, they answer a distress call from a neighbor of aspiring actress/actual waitress Tanya Kenworth to find Tanya, her two children, and her dog missing from their Topanga house, which is awash in blood. As she's searching the woods around the house for clues, Eve is jumped by a hairy monster she can't even identify as human before she's knocked outan incident she improbably decides to keep secret from Duncan. There's plenty of convincing evidence that the family was killed, dismembered, and taken away but no evidence that points to any particular suspect. Tanya's ex-husband, Cleve, seems to have been hours away in Merced when his estranged family vanished, and her ex-boyfriend, Jared Rawlins, was entertaining his rebound hookup. As if determined never to be off duty again, Eve works around the clock to find and pursue new leads, but instead of impressing her colleagues, she just convinces them that she's a ruthless careerist. Nor do her efforts sit well with her endlessly critical mother, who can't understand why she looks so disheveled during the TV interviews that make her the face, and eventually the leader, of the investigation. At length, Eve's tireless work identifies a suspect she arrests, but although he fits the evidence to a T, his smug self-assurance makes her worry that she's screwed up. And she has, though not in the way she thinks.An energetic, resourceful procedural starring a heroine who deserves a series of her own. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.