My Blog

My Harrowing Addiction

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I opened up to CrimeReads about my addiction to Ralph Dennis’ amazing HARDMAN novels and how it led me to launch a publishing company, Brash Books, with Joel Goldman. Here’s an excerpt:

My expensive, life-changing addiction began six years ago when a man approached me in a nameless hotel in a city I don’t remember.

“You’re really going love this,” Bill Crider said, almost in a whisper. “And I’m not going to let you leave here until you buy it.”

We were standing in front of a used bookseller’s table at a writer’s conference. I looked down and saw that Bill was holding a yellowed, brittle paperback out to me. It was entitled Hardman #1, The Charleston Knife is Back in Town by Ralph Dennis. The slug line across the top of the cover read “Brace yourself for broads, bullets, and bare-fisted action!”

It was obvious from the numbered title that it was one of those cheap, men’s action adventure paperbacks, a genre I knew well, having written, under the pseudonym “Ian Ludlow,” a series called .357 Vigilante in the mid-1980s for the same publisher that released this book. While there were some gems in the genre, most of them were hack work, badly written excuses for explicit sex and graphic violence that were sold in grocery store spinner racks nationwide. And a book called “Hardman”—wink, wink, nudge nudge—promised to be among the worst of them.

Bill must have seen the skepticism on my face so he smiled and said, “Trust me. You won’t regret it.”

This is how it often is with pushers. Have a taste, they say, it won’t hurt you.

And Bill was particularly good at pushing old paperbacks and forgotten authors. He was a kind, decent, warm man, an acclaimed author, and an expert on crime fiction. People trusted him. I trusted him…

I think you’ll enjoy the essay… and I strongly, enthusiastically, passionately recomment that you check out the HARDMAN novels.

The Thrill of Research

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Lee in Hong Kong researching a key scene in KILLER THRILLER

Research is absolutely necessary when you’re writing thrillers…and it’s a part of the process I love, perhaps because I come from a family of journalists (and I was one once). The danger, for me, is that the more I learn about a topic, the more I want to learn…and it’s easy for me to end up spending far more time than is necessary on the research (it’s also a great form of procrastination.. you can fool yourself into thinking you’re working instead of actually avoiding work). I can talk to dozens of experts, and read three or four books and countless articles, for what might end up being only a few lines of dialogue or description in the book (or, OTOH, what ends up being the core of the story). But that’s always better than writing pages of exposition, description, or dialogue to show off how much research you’ve done. I’m a big believe that one sentence offering a telling detail is far better than a paragraph of description. That said, having the “extra” knowledge on a particular topic in the back of your mind as you write ends up deepening the story and the characters in subtle ways… and often, at least for me, research inspires new characters or plot twists that I never would have come up with otherwise.

Travel is my favorite part of research (and it was a lot of fun to do for KILLER THRILLER, my latest release). Sure, you can use guidebooks, watch Bourdain or Rick Steves episodes, and do a deep dive into Google Earth to fake it, and I’ve done that a few times out of necessity, but I truly believe that nothing beats “feet on the ground” to get that tiny detail, smell, taste or sound that will bring a place, a moment, or a character to life. It’s important to truly experience the place you are writing about. That means not just hitting the tourist spots, but the places where the “locals” live and work. It also means being gregarious and talking to those people — so you can create realistic characters who truly reflect the places you’ve been. I usually already have my story in mind before I travel for research… but inevitably, my story changes dramatically after what I learn from actually experiencing a place I only imagined as I was plotting.

Lee in Paris researching KILLER THRILLER

To write my books, I’ve traveled to France, China, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, and all over the United States, among other places. But travel research can mean just stepping outside your door and seeing your own city in a new way.

I’ve lived in Los Angeles for over 30 years. In my novel THE WALK, a guy is stuck in downtown in LA when the big one hits and has to walk across a landscape of destruction back to his gated community in the San Fernando Valley. I know the L.A. well, but I still read a bunch of books and articles on the city, the architecture, and the neighborhoods that make it up, on earthquakes and what experts expect the damage from The Big One is likely to be. I had the story plotted out but then decided, if I was going to do this right, I really needed to take the walk myself. And when I did (not all at once, like my character), I saw things that made me rethink my plot and I picked up the key details of place and character that made the book come alive. When it was over, I had a better understanding, and a new affection, for the city I live in and thought I already knew.

I attended a homicide investigators training conference almost two years ago — I was one of only three civilians invited —  as research for a book I was thinking about writing (and had already loosely plotted). While I was there, however, I learned about a case that I couldn’t get out of my head. I was smart enough to throw out my story and to focus instead on using this real case as the inspiration for my novel. I introduced myself to all of the detectives, forensic specialists, etc. who were there to present the case, told them I intended to write about it, and asked if they would let me talk with them in more depth in the weeks following the conference. They all agreed. The novel that came out of that wonderful research experience, LOST HILLS, is being released this fall and I’ve already signed to write the sequel. The book would never have happened if I hadn’t done the research my story…and been open to the inspiration that can come when you begin exploring the “reality” that is the foundation for our fiction.

 

 

LOST HILLS is coming!

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I’m so excited about this! Yesterday KILLER THRILLER launched and today my novel LOST HILLS, the first in a new series, is now available for preorder on Amazon.
 
Here are just some of the pre-release blurbs:
 
“Lost Hills is what you get when you polish the police procedural to a shine: a gripping premise, a great twist, fresh spins and knowing winks to the genre conventions, and all the smart, snappy ease of an expert at work.” Tana French, New York Times bestselling author of the Edgar, Anthony, Barry and Macavity award-winning Into The Woods and a winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
 
“Lost Hills is a tense, pacy read from one of America’s greatest crime and thriller writers. We have a sense of real characters doing real police work, not snatching answers out of the air.” — Garry Disher, the Ned Kelly Award-winning, international bestselling author of the Inspector Challis series
 
“Thrills and chills! Lost Hills is the perfect combination of action and suspense, not to mention Eve Ronin is one of the best new female characters in ages. You will race through the pages!” — Lisa Gardner, New York Times bestselling author
 
“Lost Hills is a top-notch procedural that shines like a true gem.” —Craig Johnson, New York Times bestselling author of the Walt Longmire mysteries, the basis of Netflix’s Longmire
 
“A winner. Packed with procedure, forensics, vivid descriptions, and the right amount of humor. Fervent fans of Connelly and Crais, this is your next read.” —Kendra Elliot, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of A Merciful Secret
 
“Brilliant! Eve Ronin rocks! With a baffling and brutal case, tight plotting, and a fascinating look at police procedure, Lost Hills is a stunning start to a new detective series. A must-read for crime fiction fans. –-Melinda Leigh, Wall Street Journal and #1 Amazon Charts Bestselling author
 
 

Lee Discounted

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To celebrate the upcoming release of KILLER THRILLER on 2/12, Amazon Publishing has dramatically slashed the prices on everything I’ve ever written for them. Here’s the rundown…

THE BIG DISCOUNTS:

The ebook edition of TRUE FICTION is only $1.99 and the print editions are 50% off.

“Thriller fiction at its absolute finest—and it could happen for real. But not to me, I hope.” —Lee Child

“This may be the most fun you’ll ever have reading a thriller. It’s a breathtaking rush of suspense, intrigue, and laughter that only Lee Goldberg could pull off. I loved it.” —Janet Evanovich

King City by Lee Goldberg book coverThe ebook edition of KING CITY is only 99 cents…and the print edition is 20% off.

“I could tell you that Lee Goldberg’s King City is one of the best reads of the year or that Lee is one of my favorite writers for so many reasons—plotting, character, or his incredible sense of humor—but that might ruin the surprise of reading King City for yourself. Suffice to say that Goldberg is one infinitely readable master of crime fiction, and King Cityis Lee at his best.” —Craig Johnson

The seven volumes of THE DEAD MAN series, each one containing three action/adventure/horror novellas, are only 99 cents each…and the print editions are 25% off. You can find the entire series here.

“Buckle up! THE DEAD MAN starts at full-speed and never lets up. This is big-ticket horror with characters you care about who are driven to the very edge. Highly recommended!” —Jonathan Maberry

The Dead Man Series

 

The Thrilling Big Thrill Interview

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The Big Thrill, the magazine of the International Thriller Writers, has published a detailed interview with me about KILLER THRILLER, how I write, the traits I share with my characters, and how many goats I sacrifice for each book. You can find it here. In the meantime, here’s an excerpt:

Killer Thriller by Lee GoldbergThe character of “Ian Ludlow” is based on your first pen name. If you were writing your own story, would it read like these novels?

Not at all. My life isn’t as exciting as his…

I lead a very normal, domestic home life. I’m your average husband and father…I walk the dog (and pick up poop), I go shopping at Costco, I grill a lot of meat, I buy clothes at the outlet mall, I embarrass my daughter, I exasperate my wife—nothing very glamorous or exciting. And I love every minute of it. The only difference between me and a million other dads out there is that I get paid to make stuff up.

What Ian and I share in common is our physical build, the way we dress, and what we do for a living. And, like him, I’m creeped out by how much of the stuff that I make up to entertain people is coming true.

 

Lots of Lee Coming Your Way

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Killer Thriller by Lee Goldberg

I’ve got lots of exciting news to share about the new books and movies that I’ve written that are coming your way over the next few weeks…

MYSTERY 101 AIRS ON SUNDAY

Set your DVRs! I co-wrote and co-created, with my good friend Robin Bernheim, the mystery movie/TV series pilot MYSTERY 101, which airs on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries on January 27th. If you’ve enjoyed my work on DIAGNOSIS MURDER and MONK, I think you’ll like this movie, which stars Jill Wagner as an English professor who specializes in crime fiction…and applies what she’s learned from the great detectives to solve murders herself. You cam learn more about the movie, and see some sneak previews and behind-the-scenes interviews here. If the movie does well in the ratings, you can expect to see more MYSTERY 101 movies later this year.

 

THRILLING REVIEWS FOR KILLER THRILLER

The reviews have started coming in for my new novel KILLER THRILLER, the sequel to TRUE FICTION, which will be released on February 12th.

“The pleasure here is watching Goldberg mock the thriller form while creating a first-rate one, boiling with chases, fights, sweaty-palm tension, snappy dialogue, and glamorous, exotic locations—this time, post-Maugham Hong Kong and its stunning outdoor escalators. It’s really a sophisticated exercise in metafiction: commenting on narrative while creating it.” Booklist

It grabs you from page one with brilliant wit, sharply honed suspense, and a huge helping of pure originality.” —Jeffery Deaver, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Goldberg’s thrillers are some of the wittiest around, and his newest doesn’t disappoint…a meta-thriller that’s genuinely heart-pounding but also clever enough to keep you smiling and reading on.” Crime Reads

“Killer Thriller by Lee Goldberg is an action-packed treasure filled with intrigue, engaging characters, and exciting, well-rendered locales. With Goldberg’s hyper-clever plotting, dialogue, and wit on every page, readers are in for a blast with this one!”—Mark Greaney, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Killer Thriller by Lee Goldberg“A solid thriller that moves fast and is tons of fun. It’s rare for a sequel to be better than the original, but Lee Goldberg’s Killer Thriller takes Ian Ludlow to new heights. Diehard fans of the genre should definitely check this one out.” The Real Book Spy

“A delight from start-to-finish, a round-the-world, thrill-a-minute, laser-guided missile of a book.” —Joseph Finder, #1 New York Times bestselling author

You can pre-order the book here. [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079L6Q5KS/lg-website-20}

GOODREADS GIVEAWAY

Goodreads is giving away 100 copies of KILLER THRILLER. You can sign up for free here 

SIGN UP FOR DISCOUNTS & DEALS

The imminent release of KILLER THRILLER means there will soon be some big discounts and special offers on my “backlist” titles like TRUE FICTON and THE WALK. Don’t miss out! Be sure to click “follow” on my Amazon Author page to be alerted to all the upcoming discounts and special offers on my books.

SEE ME ON THE ROAD

I’ll be hitting the road to spread the good word about KILLER THRILLER, starting on February 12th. You can find my tour/event schedule here.

TV Book Reviews: SINGLE SEASON SITCOMS and TELEVISION FINALES

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Two recent TV references books are worth your consideration this holiday season.
 
SINGLE SEASON SITCOMS OF THE 1990s: A Complete Guide by Bob Leszczak   This is a great book — and more than another “just the facts ma’am” reference book — — but the title isn’t entirely accurate. The author takes an extremely broad view of what consitutes a sitcom. He includes some single-season, hour long shows like AGAINST THE LAW, ADVENTURES OF BRISCO COUNTY, CUPID, FREAKS AND GEEKS, GOING TO EXTREMES, HARTS OF THE WEST, SPY GAME and TEQUILA AND BONETTI that most people would never consider situation comedies. And, in a book on Single Season sitcoms, he has a large section on shows that came back for an abbreviated, and/or very different second season like ALMOST PERFECT, BOB, and THE JEFF FOXWORTHY SHOW (this section is fascinating, because he explores the reasoning behind the often radical format changes that granted some of these doomed shows a second year of life). 
 
But do I care about those strange anomalies in a book about Single Season Sitcoms? No, I don’t, because this book is pure gold for a guy like me. He could have included a section on two season shows with female leads, a section on American shows featuring British actors, or a section just on TV private eyes, and I would have simply said — MORE! MORE! 
 
The book is jam-packed with tons of useful information. Each listing not only describes the premise of each show in detail, but often includes interviews with key production staff, like the producers, directors, writers and cast members (though sometimes the quotes from them are formatted with special indentation, and other times not, which doesn’t make a lot of sense). The majority of listiings mention the names of the showrunners or creators, but I wish every single listing did.
 
One of my favorite listings tells the story behind the trainwreck IT HAD TO BE YOU, the ill-fated 1993 sitcom starring Faye Dunaway and Robert Urich…that initially starred Twiggy and another actor…and by the time it was over, four weeks later, only starred Urich.  Another memorable listing tells the complicated history of 1995 sitcom MINOR ADJUSTMENTS, which went through many major adjustments over its short life, which spanned 20 episodes and two networks. 
 
I loved this book. No TV reference library is complete without it and the previous two volumes, SINGLE SEASON SITCOMS OF THE 1980s and  SINGLE SEASON SITCOMS 1948-1979 (both of which I reviewed here). I can’t wait for the next edition!
 
TELEVISION FINALES:  From Howdy Doody to Girls, Edited by Douglas L. Howard and David Bianculli. A book about televsion finales is long-overdue and I was eager to read this one. This 500-page opus is more of a series of critical analyses than a reference work, with experts like TV critic David Bianculli, TV reference book author Douglas Snauffer, and TV historian Robert J. Thompson offering their insights in essays that cover 71 finales, including such classic and controversial endings as Newhart, Seinfeld, Lost, The Sopranos, St. Elsewhere, M*A*S*H and Nichols. They also cover obscure, short-lived shows like Jericho and British series like Life on Mars and Spaced. The reasoning behind which finales were chosen to include in the book isn’t clear, so we don’t know why the enders for shows like Magnum PI, Jag, Miami Vice, The Paper Chase, CSI, Who’s the Boss and The Odd Couple were overlooked, while space was given to lesser-known series like Rectify and Carnivale.
 
The essays are interesting and, in most cases, thoughtful and well-considered, with the finales put into both historical/cultural context as well as within the context of the narrative of the often long-running shows themselves. But basically most of the entries are scholarly opinion pieces, the authors explaining why they think a particular finale was memorable or forgettable, good or bad (for example, Martha P. Nochimson hated the finale of Battlestar Galactica, faulting series creator/writer Ronald Moore for driving “the show where it could not and should not go” and frakking-up the finale)  I didn’t always agree with the authors’ conclusions (personally, I thought the Galactica finale was great and emotionally satisfying), but that didn’t lessen my enjoyment of the book. I wish, though, that the book focused far less on the opinions and analyses of the authors and more on the actual development and production of the finales, with interviews with the writers, directors, and cast members.  

Remembering Tom Kakonis

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I’ve just learned the sad news that author Tom Kakonis has passed away. I first met Tom at the 1994 Bouchercon in Seattle. I was a big fan of his work and was delighted when he invited me to sit and chat with him…and I was thrilled when he later blurbed my book MY GUN HAS BULLETS. It meant a lot to me that a writer I admired as much as Tom would endorse my work.

Two decades later, when author Joel Goldman and I launched Brash Books, I called Tom about publishing his out-of-print backlist. Not only did he say yes, but he surprised me by offering us an unpublished manuscript that had been sitting in his drawer for years. His dark-comic thriller TREASURE COAST was the first original novel that we released, so as long as Brash Books is in business, he will be an integral part of who we are as publishers, what we stand for, and what we aspire to achieve.

Tom was a great writer who didn’t get the recognition or wide readership that he deserved. I wish I’d been able to change that. Do yourself a favor and read MICHIGAN ROLL, his first and most acclaimed novel… I guarantee you’ll be hooked by this man’s talent and humor. He was a hell of a storyteller. 

The Return of Hardman

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I’m excited to announce that I’ve acquired the rights to all of Ralph Dennis’s work — his published and unpublished novels. Brash Books will be re-releasing his 12 Hardman novels, starting with the first four in December, and the rest through 2019. The Hardman books include a terrific introduction by Joe R. Lansdale. The first two titles in the series, Atlantla Deathwatch  and The Charleston Knife is Back in Town are already available for preorder in paperback and ebook on Amazon, iBook, Barnes & Noble and Kobo.
 
We’ll also be re-releasing in 2019 a substantially revised version Ralph’s WWII thriller MacTaggart’s War, which we’ve retitled The War Heist. It was his last published title and didn’t do as well as he, or the publisher hoped. I believe i know why… I’ve gone back to his original manuscript, rearranged chapters, deleted chapters, and made other revisions to heighten suspense, sharpen characters, etc… cutting the book by about 35,000 words along the way (it still clocks in at 100K words).
 
And we’re also going to be releasing many of Ralph’s unpublished novels…which, if they need revision, I will be doing myself. One of the manuscripts is going to be slightly reworked as a sequel to his previous published novel Atlanta (which we are likely to retitle before re-publishing)
 
Boucheron 2013: Joel Goldman, Lee Goldberg and Jeffrey Deaver
Joel Goldman, Lee Goldberg and Jeffery Deaver at Bouchercon Albany where “Brash Books” was born

This has been a passion project for me ever since Bill Crider and Paul Bishop introduced me to the Hardman novels five years ago. I immediately decided I had to get them back into print, so I sought out the advice of my good friend Joel Goldman…and as a result of those discussions, a partnership and a publishing company were born. Now, after the publishing nearly 100 titles together, we are finally putting out the novels that we’d hoped would be our first releases.

Ralph Dennis isn’t a household name… but I believe that he should be. He is widely considered among crime writers as a master of the genre, denied the recognition he deserved because his series of twelve Hardman books, which are beloved and highly sought-after collectables now, were poorly packaged in the 1970s by Popular Library as cheap men’s action-adventure paperbacks with numbered titles.

Even so, some top critics saw past the cheesy covers and noticed that he was producing work as good as John D. MacDonald, Raymond Chandler, Chester Himes, Dashiell Hammett, and Ross MacDonald.

The New York Times praised the Hardman novels for “expert writing, plotting, and an unusual degree of sensitivity. Dennis has mastered the genre and supplied top entertainment.” The Philadelphia Daily News proclaimed Hardman “the best series around…”

Unfortunately, Popular Library didn’t take the hint and continued to present the series like hack work, dooming the novels to a short shelf-life and obscurity…except among generations of crime writers, like novelist Joe R. Lansdale (the Hap & Leonard series) and screenwriter Shane Black (the Lethal Weapon movies), who’ve kept Dennis’ legacy alive through word-of-mouth and by acknowledging his influence on their stellar work.  

I can’t wait to hear what you think of the books as they roll out… and I hope you will spread the word. We want Ralph Dennis to get the recognition and readership he’s long deserved.