Many thanks to Dick Lochte and Mystery Scene Magazine for the great review of the King City audiobook.
Because of his recent television and literary work (15 best-selling novels based on the Monk TV series, as well as scripts for that show and Diagnosis Murder) Lee Goldberg has become something of a specialist at humorous crime. But he’s actually a multi-genre man, with sci-fi and, more recently horror (The Dead Man series) as part of his rapidly, one might say even exponentially, expanding oeuvre. This effective, hard-edged, one off thriller is a case in point. It’s hero, Tom Wade, is an honorable detective in the corrupt King City in Washington State who helps the Justice Department take down a bunch of bent fellow cops and pays a high price for it. Ostracized by his own family as well as former friends and associate, he’s reassigned to Darwin Gardens, a crime ridden slummy section of the city that resembles nothing more than a wide-open frontier town in the old wild west. Assisted by two other department castoffs, he begins a Wyatt Earp-like town taming, focusing on a series of murders involving young women. Goldberg begins his tale on a moment of high tension – with Wade facing down one of the crooked cops – and lets up on the action only to add dimensional detail to the characters and the town he has created. Patrick Lawlor, one of Brilliance Audio’s more active readers, understands the need for maintaining a fast, almost breathless pace, but he also knows when to slow things down enough for listeners to share Wade’s danger or savor his clever victories.
Congrats on the fine review.