I’ve finally released a paperback edition of my novella Fast Track…twelve years after I released the ebook edition. Why the long wait? Because it wasn’t until recently that people started asking me for a hard-copy version. I think it may have something to do with the paperback releases of my Crown Vic novellas.
Fast Trackis a project close to my heart. It’s a novelization of my screenplay for the 2007 film Fast Track: No Limits, which was shot in Berlin, starred Erin Cahill as Katie, Andrew Walker as Mike and Alexia Barlier as Nicole, and doubled as the pilot for a proposed television series.
The movie was an international co-production that aired on television in Germany, France and Canada, and was released as a motion picture in many other countries around the world. For a while, things were looking good for the series. The production partners assembled a writers room, and the stories for the first season’s episodes were plotted. But international co-productions are a complicated business, the deal fell apart, and the TV series didn’t go forward.
Erin Cahill and Andrew Walker went on to great success, especially on the Hallmark Channel, where they have each starred in many movies. Alexia Barlier became a major TV star in France, where she’s starred in several hit series, including Falco, The Forest, and Sophie Cross. And Pasquale Aleardi, who played Gregor Gargolov, most recently starred in the long-running German series Kommissar Dupin. I am pleased to say that we have all stayed in touch over the last twenty years and have remained good friends.
If you’d like to see the movie Fast Track: No Limits, it’s now available on Amazon Prime or on DVD from Maverick Entertainment Group.
I’m delighted to share with you my new novella Crown Vic 2: If I Were a Rich Man. You may be one of the hundreds of readers who already pre-ordered it… but because of an infuriating technical glitch by Amazon, you were notified that your order was cancelled and the book was not going to be released. Amazon has apologized to me for their mistake, and may be reaching out to you soon to let you know the novella is now available in ebook and trade paperback.
But for the rest of you, here’s the story behind this new novella. A few years ago, I released the first Crown Vic,a collection containing two short novellas, “Ray Boyd isn’t Stupid” and “Occasional Risk,” as an experiment. I wanted to see if readers would accept a character from me who isn’t the least bit heroic… an ex-con aimlessly wandering America in his used Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, going wherever his appetites lead him, thinking only of himself and nobody else. The stories were dark, funny, violent, and full of sex…very different from my other work.
To my surprise, the response from hundreds of readers was a resounding Yes, we want more! There was even a five-star review from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, which called Crown Vic “a fun departure for Goldberg and a throwback to the thrilling and erotic men’s adventure novels of the 1970s.” That was exactly what I was going for.
One of the readers who wanted more of Ray Boyd was my brother Tod, a New York Times bestselling author, who was gathering stories for Eight Very Bad Nights: A Collection of Hanukkah Noirfor Soho. He thought a Ray Boyd story would be perfect for it. I reminded Tod of how twisted, sexually explicit, and violent the Ray Boyd stories were, but he insisted that was exactly what he wanted for his holiday collection.
Mostly, though, I think Tod was giving me an excuse to dip my toe into Ray Boyd’s world one more time to see if I wanted to seriously pursue writing a full-length book, or collection of novellas, about the character.
So I wrote “If I Were a Rich Man,” the longest, and certainly the most sexually explicit, story in his collection. I’m glad to say the critical response to the story was terrific, with positive reviews coming from many sources, including the Los Angeles Times. There has even been Hollywood interest in optioning the character for TV and movies, though I haven’t accepted any offers yet.
So yes, I do intend to write more about Ray Boyd, either in a book length collection of loosely-linked stories or by occasionally writing and publishing individual novellas like this one between my other contractual commitments (like more Sharpe & Walker and Eve Ronin novels).
If you enjoy this novella, and would like to see more of Ray Boyd, I hope you will consider posting a review on Amazon and letting me know what you thought of it.
I know I’ve been very quiet lately… but that’s because I have been so busy!
Edison Bixby is coming
Today I delivered my new novel, Edison Bixby, to my publisher, a couple of weeks before my deadline. The novel is about a ridiculously wealthy (and amazingly attractive) LAPD homicide detective, an expert on how the “built world” influences behavior, who suffers a career-ending injury… and now solves baffling murders with the help of a struggling actor. It’s a comedic whodunit, closer in tone to my sixteen Monk novels than the various police procedurals and the action-adventure novels I’ve been writing for the last decade or so.
It’s not that I don’t love writing those books – I do and there will be more of them – but I was itching to write my own take on the traditional whodunit, to create an extraordinarily clever detective who uses his unusual skills, and unique perspective on the world, to solve crimes that nobody else can.
I guess you could call Edison Bixby a twisted mash-up of Columbo, Monk, Burke’s Law, Nero Wolfe, and Sherlock Holmes. Whatever it is, it was blast to write. The downside, though, was that it took an enormous amount of research. My author’s note at the end of the book reads more like the bibliography for a thesis than a thank-you and over-view of my research. But at least now I have all the information I need to keep on writing more Bixby mysteries… assuming enough of you like the book when it comes out next summer.
Hidden in Smoke is here
In the meantime, Hidden in Smoke, the third Sharpe & Walker novel (about a team of arson investigators) and the second cross-over with my long-running Eve Ronin series (about a relentless young homicide detective), just came out a few weeks ago. It has been selling great, and has scored some of the best reader reviews I’ve ever had, so it wouldn’t surprise me if there will be another Sharpe & Walker novel in my future and yours.
Eve Ronin is coming back
And coming this October is Fallen Star, the sixth Eve Ronin novel, and a cross-over with the Sharpe & Walker series. I am very excited about the book, because it pulls together strands from the previous Ronin novels into a new mystery that imperils both Eve’s career and her life. The book stands alone, but will pack a stronger punch of you’ve readBone Canyon (Eve #2), and Movieland (Eve #4). So you might want to read those two novels first…if you haven’t already. There’s are two surprise cameos in the book for those of you familiar with my backlist…
Speaking of Eve Ronin, there is some big TV news about her that I have been keeping to myself and have been itching to share. I still can’t give you any specific details. But I will say this much – an actress you know and love is attached to play Eve, a terrific showrunner is developing the series, and I have high hopes things will come together soon.
I’m Returning to TV…
Also on the TV front, a big studio behind some of your favorite crime shows and a great team of writers and producers are developing a series version of my genre-bending novel Calico…and I can’t wait to see what they come up with. They have some fantastic ideas for expanding on the novel and for using some material I cut from the original manuscript (as well as incorporating some of my ideas for the sequel).
And speaking of TV shows, I’m presently hard-at-work for my old friend Robin Bernheim, with whom I co-created the hit Hallmark series Mystery 101, as a co-exec producer and writer on a presently-untitled new mystery series starring Brooke Shields for AMC/Acorn. Not only do I get to work with Robin on this delightful show, but also with my good buddy Phoef Sutton, the Emmy-Award winning writer/producer of Cheers and Boston Legal, among many other series. And, like me, Phoef co-authored books with my friend Janet Evanovich.
Phoef and I are drawing heavily on our mystery writing and co-authoring experiences for this series, which is about a hugely successful author who reluctantly teams up with a young woman, an inexperienced “true crime” podcaster, to write her next crime novel…and they end up solving murders together. I think of it as mash-up of Murder, She Wrote and Hacks…with a touch of Remington Steele and Lucille Ball thrown in. Casting is underway on the six-episode first season, which starts shooting soon…so watch for news.
What’s Next?
And in the midst of all that, while I’m waiting to hear what my publisher wants me to write next (will it be Eve Ronin #7, Sharpe & Walker #4, or Edison Bixby #2? I don’t know), I am back to work on a standalone crime novel set in Baker, CA.
I’ve been researching my “Baker” novel off-and-on for years, but made a big effort back in December 2024 and January 2025, reading a ton of books and articles, and spending days out in the Mojave interviewing sheriff’s deputies, firefighters, teachers, and residents. I was a quarter of the way into writing the book when I got the contract for Edison Bixby…and then got hired on Robin’s show. So I had to set the manuscript aside. But now that Bixby is in, and the scripts for the show are nearly complete, I’ve opened up my research binders and am slowly picking up where I left off…
So that’s the latest from me and my desk… and again, I apologize for being so quiet lately (aside from my relentless self-promotion, of course)… but the good news is it means you’ll be getting a lot more books and TV shows from me over the next twelve months or so.
I’d love to give the scammers at Fawcett Publications a call for one of my video take downs, but I’m waaaay too busy. So I thought I’d share with you just how laughably inept their swindle is.
I got an email from “Blake Wallace,” their “Assistant VP,” who is impressed with my work and wants to help me reach a wide audience (see email below). I checked out their site and had a good laugh.
First, their “head office” in Anaheim, CA and their “regional office” in Rochester Minnesota are both apartments, according to Google Earth. Their “regional office” in Skokie Illinois is shared with Penguin Book Writers, a ghost writing service. They imply on their Penguin site that they have ghosted scores of bestselling novels, including TJ Newman‘s FALLING and the screenplay version, too! (See screen grabs).
They also imply that their expert ghostwriters wrote the Julie Andrews autobiography, the Philip Roth biography, and Robert Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson (see screen grab).
Imagine my surprise when the photo for one of their top ghost writers, “JD Greear”, actually belongs to Emmy award winning writer/producer Phil Rosenthal (see screen capture below), creator of Everybody Loves Raymond. That one gave me a big laugh. How dumb and lazy are these scammers??
According to Google Reverse Image search, their photo for ghost writer “Gena Palumbo,” actually belongs to author Genevieve Wheeler, author of Adelaide. And their photo of ghost writer “Remi Blackwood” was stolen from Helen Elaine Lee, a professor at MIT and author of the novel Pomegranate.
It gets even better. They have a disclaimer in itsy-bitsy letters at the bottom of their Fawcett Publications site that says:
“Disclaimer: Fawcett Publications heavily draws its inspiration from Wilford Fawcett but is, regardless, an independent entity.”
They also claim to have 19 #1 NY Times bestsellers and have sold over 100 million books. And yet, their head office is in an Anaheim apartment. Clearly, those ridiculous claims “heavily draw” from the real Fawcett, too.
I hope you’re doing well. I wanted to reach out to see if you would be open to or considering pitching your book to production companies for a potential film adaptation. With the growing demand for book-to-film projects, this could be a great opportunity to bring your story to a wider audience.
To make this possible, we have submission specialist partners who can assist you in submitting your work to the right production companies. They work closely with industry professionals and can help navigate the submission process effectively.
Additionally, as part of this process, you will have the opportunity to speak with an award winning film adviser and studio manager via Zoom. This session will help prepare your work before submission and provide valuable insights into the adaptation process, ensuring you are well-equipped for the next steps.
Please let me know if this is something you’d be interested in exploring, and I’d be happy to facilitate the connection. Looking forward to your thoughts.
–
jim Collins
Producer’s Representative
Hollywood Talent Agency
I was so excited! The “Hollywood Talent Agency” was interested in CALICO! I couldn’t wait to speak to a “submission specialist partner,” “film advisor,” “studio manager,” or “producer’s representative.”
So I immediately called “Jim Collins” at the “Hollywood Talent Agency” … and it was a guy in the Philippines or somewhere else outside the U.S. who’d never heard of Jim, the talent agency, or me… but would check with his “endorsement people” to see if I had an “endorsement” and would get back to me. I emailed Jim and let him know about the snafu. A short time later, I then got this email:
Dear Lee Goldberg,
This is Darius from the Writer’s Edge Production. I actually received an endorsement from Mr. Jim Collins for a discussion for your book Calico. It was too late for me to know that there will be someone who’ll call me. So I asked the Talent Agency if there is someone named Lee Goldberg that I am expecting.
So, I got your email from them and let me know when you’re gonna call for an discussion.
Best regards,
Phone: (323) 412-8503
Email: darius@writersedgeproduction.com
Website: writersedgeproduction.com
I called back… and let “Darius” know I was recording the call… and talked with him for over half an hour. The video is below, but I cut out about 15 minutes — the guy’s grasp of English was terrible, and he had a hard time carrying on a coherent conversation while also reading from, and trying to integrate, the dialogue from his sales script.
Nothing he said made any sense at all. It was such an obvious, ineptly executed scam, that the call isn’t much fun to watch …and wasn’t a lot of fun for me, either, since it was hard work trying to follow what Darius was saying and because it was so ridiculously easy to trip him up with just a few simple questions.
As I expected, it turned out to be the old “pitch deck” scam. You are required to have them produce a video pitch for you, which they will submit (for a fee) to their “VIP contacts” at the studios, because that’s the only way to get your book considered.
For this service, I would get a “certificate of submission” to prove the pitch deck was sent out. He warned me that only 50% of these submissions result in an option.
The only new twist to the scam was that he told that I would get to work with “an award-winning film advisor” and “studio manager” who is also an “award-winning director” and “film teacher.” When I asked him who this was amazing person was, with a shelf of awards, he said it was the acclaimed filmmaker Warut Snidvongs.
So I looked up Warut on imdb….and he has one short film to his credit as a “collaborating director,” and multiple credits as a grip, gaffer and camera operator. I don’t know if this Hollywood superstar is really involved with “Writer’s Edge Production” or “Hollywood Talent Agency,” but his credits don’t exactly inspire awe …or suggest he has any experience getting books adapted into movies. I mentioned this to Darius, who said Warut is widely respected all over the world and is working on a major motion picture right now called “Red Card.” So I looked that one up on imbd… it’s a Mandarin-language film, with a whopping $100,000 budget, and Warut is a lowly camera assistant on it.
I asked Darius what advice Warut, who is obviously someone very low on the Hollywood production ladder, could give me on selling my book to the movies. Poor Darius didn’t know how to deal with that question. He fumbled through an answer that didn’t make any sense. I suspect that Warut is the guy who’d be producing my useless pitch deck… if, indeed, Warut has anything to do with this lame operation.
When I revealed to Darius, mostly because I was exhausted by now trying to parse his bad English, that I am a bestselling author and experienced TV producer… and that I am well aware of the pitch deck scam…and that I take great delight in outing people like him on social media…he was flummoxed.
Darius said what they do isn’t a scam because they disclose to people that they only have “50/50 chance” of getting an offer from a studio.
I said what makes it a scam is that you aren’t actually a literary or talent agency. Studios don’t require a pitch deck with a book or screenplay submission. You don’t have any VIP connections at the studios. And you, “Darius,” aren’t who you say you are…
This is all about getting aspiring authors who know even less about Hollywood than you do to pay you outrageous amounts of money for a useless pitch deck and other “services” that will never get their book sold to anybody. But it will empty their bank accounts. That is the scam, and I will let everybody know it.
He called me an awful, dishonest person.
That almost made the half-hour I wasted on this worthwhile.
I’m very sad to hear about Joseph Wambaugh‘s passing.
Like my brother Tod Goldberg, who has posted a Facebook remembrance of Joe, I don’t remember how I first met him, only that he was a friend of our family for years. It was probably through my Mom, and maybe at the Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference. But I have all of his books signed, and several photos with him over the years.
The last time we actually saw each other face-to-face (but not the last time we talked) was at the 2012 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books…he’d asked me to interview him on stage to promote his latest HOLLYWOOD STATION novel. I was delighted to do it. I read up on his old interviews, watched on YouTube his old appearances on Johnny Carson and Tom Snyder, and figured I’d just ask him the questions I knew he already had great answers for…and a few fresh questions of my own.
We had lunch together beforehand, and it was all great….but just before we were supposed to go on stage, he pulled me aside and said…”I can’t do it. We have to cancel the interview.” I thought he was joking, but he wasn’t. He was having a panic attack. I told him you’ve been on Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin, this is nothing. I’m going to ask you softball questions you’ve been asked before, nothing you can’t answer. But he shook his head. I can’t do it. I’ve lost it. I’m terrible. I said you’ll be fine, if you don’t have the anecdote, I’ll give you a gentle reminder. You’ll kill, trust me.
And he did. He was wonderful, totally at ease, funny, insightful, his usual. But as we got off stage, he was shaking…and he said, “that’s it, I’m done. I won’t appear on stage ever again.”
To my knowledge, he never did.
But we stayed in touch. He blurbed a book of mine (KING CITY), he blurbed a book for Brash (Jack Bunker’s TRUE GRIFT…and there’s a great story behind that, too, but I will let Jack share it), and he congratulated me on LOST HILLS, which he thought was a great crime novel. I resisted the urge to ask him if I could use it as a blurb 🙂
He told me the secret to his cop novels was taking fellow cops to Ruth’s Chris, buying them a steak and some drinks, and letting them talk…and then just listening to what they had to say. Not so much to the specific stories, but the way they *told* their stories, what were the key details that matter to them, the observations they made, the language they used, how they held their bodies as they spoke… it never failed to inspire him.
I was saddened to hear about Gene Hackman’s passing. I had a brief encounter with him after he retired and had become an author.
He was a guest at the International Mystery Writer’s Festival at the RiverPark Center in Owensboro, KY, which was run at the time by Zev Buffman, a well-known Broadway producer.
When I arrived, I was brought on stage, given the key to the city, a gavel making me an honorary judge advocate, and then the Governor (or was it the Secretary of State?) honored me as a Kentucky Colonel, telling me I was joining a long list of people including Pope John Paul, Elvis Presley, Florence Henderson, Teddy Rosevelt, Harlan Sanders, etc. I joked that he was making a terrible mistake, he had the wrong person, etc. There was a lot of laughs and that was that.
I was staying at the Comfort Inn, off the freeway, along with some of the other authors, but also truck drivers, traveling families, etc. It’s place people usually stay on their way to somewhere else.
So, the next moring, I went down for breakfast, and it was mobbed with people…families, screaming kids, etc. I sat down with the late Bob Levinson to eat my bagel and Gene Hackman comes in. At first, nobody noticed him. The last person you expect to see at a Comfort Inn in Owensboro is somebody famous, certainly not an Oscar winning actor.
Hackman went through the motions of gathering his breakfast, and one by one, people recognized him… they were startled. They’d did spit-takes, or jumped back, or shrieked, and on each occasion, he smiled politely and took their shock in stride. It impressed me. It was also hilarious. Bob and I could have spent all day watching people react to Gene Hackman.
Later that day, Hackman was also brought up on stage, and given the key to the city and the gavel, and then the Governor made him a Kentucky Colonel, repeating the bit that Hackman was joining such luminaries as bla bla bla bla and, of course, the Governor looked at me now with a glint in his eye, Lee Goldberg.
Later, I approached Hackman and asked if I could have my picture taken with him, and he said of course…we also exchanged signed books.
I asked him what he was doing in Owensboro, and he said that Zev had given him one of his first jobs on Broadway, so if Zev calls, he shows up. I mentioned how impressed I was by his reaction at breakfast to being recognized and he said was used to it, but it had also surprised him, because off-camera, he looks like such an “everyman,” that he can often get away unnoticed.
I think that may have been one of his great gifts as an actor. He didn’t look like a movie star. He looked like a regular guy … but I think, when he wanted to, he could also *be* one.
Yesterday I got a phone message from “Jamie Brown” at Brokers AB, a “literary agency,” informing me that four major publishing companies wanted to buy my book for $250-400K. All Brokers AB wants in return is a 12% commission on the sale. Wow, how exciting! I googled Brokers AB, and learned they also do business as “WGA Publications,” and even have the audacity to list the Writers Guild of America website as part of their company. They are based in one of those “WeWork”-type shared offices in Oxnard, CA. I called them back today… and played along for a while before questioning their entire, idiotic scam. Here is the entirety of the phone call.
The movie was an international co-production that aired on television in Germany, France and Canada, and was released as a motion picture in many other countries around the world. For a while, things were looking good for the series. The production partners assembled a writers room, and the stories for the first season’s episodes were plotted. But international co-productions are a complicated business, the deal fell apart, and the TV series didn’t go forward. 
Mostly, though, I think Tod was giving me an excuse to dip my toe into Ray Boyd’s world one more time to see if I wanted to seriously pursue writing a full-length book, or collection of novellas, about the character.
Eve Ronin is coming back 
As I expected, it turned out to be the old “pitch deck” scam. You are required to have them produce a video pitch for you, which they will submit (for a fee) to their “VIP contacts” at the studios, because that’s the only way to get your book considered.
Darius said what they do isn’t a scam because they disclose to people that they only have “50/50 chance” of getting an offer from a studio.
And he did. He was wonderful, totally at ease, funny, insightful, his usual. But as we got off stage, he was shaking…and he said, “that’s it, I’m done. I won’t appear on stage ever again.”
