My Blog

CALICO is out… and I’m EVERYWHERE!

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Calico by Lee Goldberg

My new thriller CALICO, a genre mash-up that (to my relief) is getting fantastic reviews, is out today. But that’s not all. I’m all ove the Internet, writing essays about the book and doing interviews to explain myself…and my decision to write this seemingly sharp departure from my usual work.

Today, in CrimeReads, I out myself as a closeted wesstern writer.

I decided to do it by writing a gritty western set in 1883 in the Mojave desert mining town of Calico, which is now a cheesy roadside attraction off the I-15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. It’s actually a notion I’ve had in the back of my mind for years…maybe even decades.

But there have been a thousand westerns. What could I bring to the genre that nobody else had? How could I make it my own? 

The answer was obvious: I’d use the novel to reconcile my creative, split personality. And I’d do that by combining a seemingly traditional western with a present-day crime novel… a seemingly straight-forward police procedural set in the Mojave in 2019. 

Notice the repetition of the word seemingly in the previous paragraph. 

That’s because, to truly make it mine, I’d have to acknowledge the tropes of both genres…and then ruthlessly subvert them.  That’s my brand, or so I am told, exemplified by my “Ian Ludlow” trilogy of spy novels (True Fiction, Killer Thriller, and Fake Truth)

What would connect the two storylines? 

The answer was easy. 

They would share the same corpse. 

 

And I visited my friends at Rogue Women Writers to talk about how I wrote the book:

When you read a contemporary police procedural or a period western, you go into them with certain expectations about the stories, the characters, and the themes you’re going to find. Those expectations are what defines those very different genres. While some of those tropes are necessary, many of them are tired, ridiculous cliches. I set out with my thriller Calico to honor the tropes of those two genres while twisting them in new ways and bringing them together in a single, propulsive thriller.

And over at The Dossier, I was grilled about how I work.

DOSSIER: When and where do you write, and what kind of environment do you prefer? (Music/silence/ocean-front veranda where sea nymphs emerge from the water to serve you chilled Bollinger and Oreos?)

GOLDBERG: Sadly, no sea nymphs. Just my dog laying on my office couch, loudly licking his ass or barking in a dream.

I do my best writing between 8 p.m and 2 a.m. in my home office. I like to listen to instrumental TV and movie soundtracks while I work (and to drown out the canine farting). If I am writing action, I might listen to Goldfinger (or other Bond scores), The Bourne Identity, or Mission Impossible (mostly Lalo Schifrin’s original TV soundtracks, and a couple of the features). If I am writing “procedural” scenes, I might listen to Jon Burlingame’s excellent collection of Quinn Martin TV series soundtracks (Streets of San Francisco, Cannon, Barnaby Jones, etc), or Jerry Goldsmith’s Police Story, or Morton Steven’s Hawaii Five-O, for example. I have a collection of hundreds of soundtracks to choose from.

I wish I could munch on Oreos and potato chips while I write, but these days it’s Keto Bars and roasted almonds… washed down with Diet Coke.

I hope you enjoy all of that…but, most of all, I hope you will grab a copy of CALICO. It’s a book I’ve wanted to write for decades and I’m so excited to finally have it out there in the world.

Shaft is Gone…

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I was saddened to hear about Richard Roundtree’s passing. I had two professional encounters with him….
 
The first was back in the early 1990s. William Rabkin & I wrote a BLADE feature script for New World Pictures, which owned the Marvel library at the time. New World was courting Richard Roundtree to star. So we joined a bunch of New World execs and Roundtree at a fancy restaurant for an expensive lunch to pitch him the project. That went fine, but a few hours later, we all got horrific food poisoning. I was vomiting for days. I don’t think I’ve ever been so sick. It was a bad omen. The movie…well, our version of it anyway… never got made.
 
Then, in 2004. Roundtree was cast in an episode of MISSING, a Lifetime series that we were writing & producing…and I ended up spending the day with him in an ADR studio in Sacramento, where I think he may have been living at the time, to re-record his dialogue which, for some reason, was in bad shape. He didn’t remember me, so I mentioned the BLADE meeting and he started laughing. “All I remember about that lunch,” he said, “is that it nearly killed me.”

Crown Vic

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Crown Vic  is a slim new volume from Cutting Edge Books containing two previously unpublished stories about Ray Boyd, an ex-con traveling the open road in an old cop car. Ray is the anti-Reacher. He doesn’t help people in trouble. He helps himself.

Fair warning, these two violent, sexually explicit stories — “Ray Boyd isn’t Stupid” and “Occasional Risk” — are very different from anything I’ve written before (with the possible exception of “Lost Shows,” a short story I wrote for Lawrence Block‘s Collectibles anthology). I shared the stories with Larry, my agent, my brother Tod & a few friends, who all really liked them. But I didn’t know what to do with the stories after that (who publishes short stories like these anymore?) and I had two books to write, so I set Ray aside. That was a few years ago.

Recently, my brother asked me to write a new Ray Boyd story for an anthology he’s editing…and once I got into it, I realized how much I missed the character.

But should I write more about Ray Boyd?

That will depend on you and the response I get to these two stories, which Cutting Edge Books is publishing as a test run. If you like them, let me know by posting a comment here or leaving a positive review on Amazon.

I’m Everywhere!

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Like SPECTRE agents, I’m everywhere… at least during the month following the release of a new book. Over the last two weeks, I’ve done a ton of interviews for podcasts, radio shows, video programs, and newspapers, discussing MALIBU BURNING, my sordid career, and the craft of writing. If you missed any of them, you can watch, listen, or read some of them below…

I did a lively interview with David Temple of The Thriller Zone, which you can see here.

Lee and Tod

My brother Tod and I were interviewed together by Erik Pedersen…and it’s by far the best one that’s ever been done with the two of us. You can read it in the Orange County Register. You can also find it in the Los Angeles Daily News, The Boston Herald, Long Beach Press Enterprise, The Pasadena Star Newsand many other newspaper sites nationwid

You can watch me and Tod being interviewed by Sandra Tsing Loh on Bookish.  It is hosted on the Southern California News Group’s YouTube channel.

I was cross-examined at length by Toni Marcolini on her show It May Interest You To Know. You can see it here.

I spoke about collaboration and other aspects of writing with Daniel Paisner on the As Told To podcast. You can listen to it here or here.

I got In Between the Pages with James Lott Jr., which you can see here.

I talked about how I create my stories with Steven James at The Story Blender. You can listen to it here.

R.G. Belsky held my feet to the fire for an interview you can read in The Big Thrill.

I had a lot of fun talking with author Sara DiVello for her Mystery Mavens show, which you can watch here.

You can also watch me being interrogated by Cyrus Webb on his Amazon Live show, here.

Finally, I was grilled by Al Warren and author Joe Goldberg (no relation) on the House of Mystery Radio Show, which you can listen to here or here.

 

Lee Goldberg and Craig Johnson

Speaking of interviews, a few years ago, I interviewed author Craig Johnson, and the cast & producers of LONGMIRE, the TV series based on his books, for a live, ticketed LiveTalksLA event. That event was filmed, and it’s finally shown up on YouTube. You can see it here.

I hope you enjoy the interviews… and that it inspires you to read MALIBU BURNING!

TV and Movie Books

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I’ve been remiss in talking about some of the TV and movie reference books I’ve read over the last year…so here are a few short reviews… 

RUNNING THE SHOW: Television from the Inside by Jeff Melvoin
 
I have to admit some biases from the get-go — I’ve known the author for years and we had the same mentor in TV business, Remington Steele showrunner Michael Gleason. So it’s probably no surprise that I loved this book..but I am sure I would have regardless of my biases. It’s a long overdue, nuts-and-bolts guide to TV showrunning that should be required reading before any writer-producer is put in charge of a TV series. I’ll go further than that. Every TV writer who joins the WGA should get a copy of this book with their membership card so they understand exactly what they are getting into.  And the book should also be required reading for network and studio executives, many of whom, it would surprise you to learn, don’t actually realize what goes into producing a TV series (ignorance often reflected in their notes). Melvoin’s book reflects the wisdom he’s gained from his years of in-the-trenches experience running shows, but it also benefits from his active role as a teacher / mentor / advisor in the WGA’s showrunner training program, which helped many of today’s top TV showrunners hone skills they might not have picked up on the job (especially in this era of eight-episode limited series and tiny, pre-production writer’s rooms). Melvoin delves into just about every aspect of showrunning, from tiny details to big-picture concepts, and it’s great stuff. But even if you’re never going to run a show, if you’re just fascinated by TV, this is a remarkable inside look at how series are made. Speaking personally, seeing the photos of Jeff’s early scripts, with Michael Gleason’s handwritten notes on the side, brought tears to my eyes….and many good memories. 
 
 
PIONEERS OF B TELEVISION: Independent Producers, Series and Pilots of the 1950s by Richard Irvin.
 
The prolific Irvin continues to mine the corners of TV ephemera for his exhaustively detailed, wonderful unique TV reference books which, as I’ve said again and again, seem to be written just for me. I love his books and wish they’d existed before I wrote my book Unsold Television Pilots back in the 80s. It would have made my research so much easier, and my listings much more informative… particularly in the case of this book. If you’ve always wanted to know more about pioneering TV producers Jack Chertok, Roland Reed, or Edward Lewis, the King of the Backdoor Pilot, this is the book for you. Speaking of back-door pilots, Irvin’s chapter on Movie Star TV Production Companies sounds like a pilot proposal for a series of books aimed, with laser-focus, on my wallet. This is a must-have for any TV reference collection….and for true historians of TV history.
 
SKI FILMS: A Comprehensive Guide by Bryan Senn. 
 
This huge book is the definition of a niche title, covering every theatrical and TV movie made with a flake of snow and a set of skis in the story (It’s also the definition of the perfect bathroom-read…especially for AirBnB snow cabin vacation rentals).  But it’s much more than a collection of detailed and snarky movie reviews — the listings often include interesting production information and interviews. Even if you aren’t interested in the genre (is it one?), movie-lovers and movie-historians will find the book a fascinating and engaging reference work. I sure did. (As an aside — I can’t believe the notoriously litigious Bond producers haven’t sued McFarland & Co. for using the full poster of ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE as their cover!).
 
THE DIRECTOR SHOULD’VE SHOT YOU : Memoirs of the Film Trade by Alan Dean Foster. 
 
This wonderful book by IAMTW Grandmaster Alan Dean Foster is, IMHO, mistitled. It isn’t really about the film trade, it’s about the movie and TV tie-in business and the rocky, land-mine filled world of novelizations. And nobody knows more about
tie-ins and novelizations, perhaps, than Alan Dean Foster. His anecdotes about novelizing movies and TV shows can be enjoyed on so many levels –. as a primer on the business and creative life of a working writer, as a history of tie-in,as an inside look at movie marketing, as history of film-making over several turbulent decades, and as a collection of amusing anecdotes/vignettes about Hollywood and writing. And on every level, it’s a resounding success.   
 
THE MOST OBSCURE CULT TV SHOWS EVER: Profiles of 50 Off-Beat Comedies and Dramas, Unsold Pilots and Unaired Series By Richard Irvin. 
 
This is another one of Irvin’s niche TV reference books, this one focusing mostly on short-lived series that were abruptly cancelled, leaving a few unaired, and probably never-to-be-seen, episodes on the shelf. He could write fifty books like this, so his picks of which shows and pilots and never-aired-series to include seems very arbitrary. It’s not clear what made these particular bombs any more worthy of being remembered than the 100s of others out there. The detailed descriptions of unaired episodes of short-lived become tedious and irrelevant, unless you happen to be one of the very few fans of one of these forgotten shows. I wish, instead, that less information was given on the unaired episodes and more space given to interviews with the writers & producers to give us more details on the creation and failure of these shows…and why they deserve not to be forgotten. That said, I don’t really get the point of this book. While I loved it, because I eat this kind of stuff up, I’m an outlier. I have to admit, as Irvin’s biggest fan, that this is his first misfire, a book that doesn’t strike me as necessary, or particularly useful, TV reference or history book.
 
 
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which charts the history of the movie from the writing of the initial novel and on through the sequel films that followed decades later. The movie is chock-full of great personal and production details about the writers, producer, studio executives, actors, and especially star Lee Marvin, who Epstein previously wrote about in biographical book Lee Marvin: Point Blank. Epstein builds his book on his own interviews, but also upon previously published material gleaned from newspapers, actor biographies, and the like. The only drawback to the book are the lengthy, overly-detailed synopses of the novel and each draft of the script, Frankly, I skimmed most of the synopses, though I might go back to re-read those portions of the book if I ever re-watch the movie. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who is interested in film-making, regardless of whether you’ve seen the movie or not.

Dame Edna and Me

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I’m sad to hear that Barry Humphries has passed away. One of the absolute highlights of my career was writing a DAME EDNA movie for him. It was initially developed for the A&E network and was meant to be the first in a series. What the network wanted was a mystery solved by Dame Edna. I got the gig because Barry had read my book Watch Me Die (then called The Man with the Iron-On Badge) and had really liked it. The opportunity was too good to pass up …and, incidentally, would also be the biggest payday I’d ever had as a screenwriter (and my first solo script without my then-writing partner Bill Rabkin).

But could I actually do it?

I watched just about everything Barry had ever done as Dame Edna, or at least everything I could get my hands on, and read all of his books, as well as John Lahr’s book about him. I was confident in my ability to write a mystery, and to be funny, but not anywhere near as funny as Dame Edna. The project scared me. How could I even try to be as funny as him? To capture his unique voice? It was insane. Moreover, so much of Dame Edna was also rooted in Australian culture, which I knew nothing about. 

So when I met with Barry, in his suite at a Beverly Hills hotel, the first thing I told him was that I will never be as funny as you. If I’m lucky, I’ll get you a script that 40% of the way there joke-wise, and you’ll have to do a major pass to make it your own…to make it Dame Edna. But he shrugged that off. He had great faith in me — a lot more than I had in myself. 

I worked on the outline with him and his good friend, producer Gary Hoffman, for the next several weeks. It was so much fun. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much developing a story. Then it came time to pitch the project to the head of A&E in person. The three of us went in.  I was counting on Barry to do the pitch with me. We’d never actually talked about that — I’d assumed it was a given. Why else would Barry be coming? We needed his star power and his wit.

I started things off. When we got to the first scene where Dame Edna appears, I turned to him to take over… and he just looked at me with a smile. I didn’t know it then, but he wouldn’t do Dame Edna unless he was in the make-up and outfit. He could only talk about her in third-person…and he wouldn’t even do that.

I was on my own.

I ended up having to imitate Dame Edna in front of the man who’d created the legendary character. I was terrified and furious at the same time. It was like trying to imitate Robin Williams or Jonathan Winters in front of them. But I had no choice. I wanted to sell the project. So I pretended he wasn’t there and gave it my all. Everybody was laughing. I wasn’t sure if it was at me or with me.

It didn’t matter. The president of A&E loved the pitch and I got the greenlight to write the script. I left that meeting soaked in sweat, embarrssed and angry despite our success. But Barry couldn’t have been happier or more supportive. He told me I did great. 

Barry was  very easy to work with, which I honestly didn’t expect. Whenever I approached him with questions or ideas, he was always gregarious, friendly, open-minded. There were a couple of times that I called him when he happened to be preparing to go on stage as Dame Edna, or had just come off-stage. Whenever that happened,  he talked to me in character, even if he was alone in his dressing room. That’s because once the wig, glasses, and outfit were on, he refused to break character (that was also why, he once told me, doing his guest role on ALLY McBEAL was incredibly exhausting for him — he was Dame Edna playing a role. So even when he was “off-camera” he was still “on-camera.” He never was able to relax. He couldn’t be himself until he got back to his hotel room and out of the make-up). Those calls with Dame Edna were hilarious, and a bit unsettling, but also very helpful. I could ask the character herself the questions I had about her. It also felt like I was getting a private Dame Edna performance… and, in essence, I was. My only regret is that I never recorded one of those calls.

Barry loved my script — and, to my shock and delight, he didn’t change a single word. So Gary turned it in to the network and we waited. The network president loved it, too. I was so excited. We all were. But then the president was unexpectedly pushed out and the new regime rethought their programming strategy…and a series of DAME EDNA movies didn’t fit in. They dropped the movie.

But Gary refused to let the project die. He was able to get the project going as a feature in the UK thanks to, if memory serves, a big tax rebate. But then, shortly before pre-production was about to begin, the rebate was pulled, the funding gap couldn’t be filled, and the project was over. I was heart-broken. There were times over the next few years when it seemed like it might come back, but it didn’t happen. The problem was that Dame Edna was big in Australia and the UK, but not big enough elsewhere to get the necessary money or presales internationally.

That was it. We all moved on.

Some years later, after my career as a novelist really took off, Gary self-published my script as an ebook on Amazon, perhaps to generate new interest in the movie. I honestly wasn’t too happy that he did that, especially because the cover was amateurish and the interior formatting was wonky, but I didn’t own the script or the character, so it was out of my hands. I never included the ebook in my bibliography nor shared its existence with anyone. The truth is, I haven’t looked at the script in at least 12 years…probably longer. But you can. The ebook version of the script is still available. I don’t know if the script holds up after all this time. You’ll have to tell me. 

I lost touch with Barry after the project fizzled, but I’ve always cherished the memory of working with him, and not just for the laughter or the paycheck. The experience undoubtedly made me a better writer. Certainly a funnier one, and I’m sure whatever lessons I learned from him, a true master of comedy and character, are still shaping my work today. 

Writing the Pilot: The Streaming Series

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Writing the Pilot: The Streaming Series by William Rabkin

This is a terrific book, but I am biased. Bill is my oldest friend, and was my TV writing and producing partner for over twenty years.

The book’s introduction alone, both a revealing history lesson and a perceptive overview on the state of the television industry, is worth the purchase price. The explosion of streaming services has changed the business of television and, with it, the way series are conceptualized and written. It’s not enough to have a good idea, you must understand the underlying forces, both creative and financial, reshaping TV. Luckily, there’s William Rabkin to make sense of it all…and guide you through it. This is essential reading for anyone hoping to break into streaming television…or any television.

An acclaimed screenwriter, showrunner, development executive, international TV consultant, and beloved professor, absolutely nobody is better suited than Bill to guide you through the creative landscape of streaming television today, envision where it’s going tomorrow, and teach you how to shape your series ideas to succeed in this ever-changing business and dramatic medium.

With this book, Bill will be your own personal Yoda, teaching you how to master the Force of streaming television success. This book is an essential manual for creating streaming television series that can succeed, not only in the business as it exists today, but what it’s likely to become tomorrow.

Raquel Welch

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I was sad to hear about Raquel Welch’s passing today. I had one encounter with her, back in the early 1980s, when I was a reporter for the UCLA Daily Bruin. She came to campus to speak, and I interviewed her beforehand, then walked with her and her husband to the event. Afterwards, I spoke with her again and walked with them back to their car. She was very friendly and it was a pleasant interview.

Much to my surprise, I got a call from her a day or so later… apparently, the National Enquirer, or some other scandal rag, was reporting that a fan came up to her at UCLA on her way back to her car and that her husband (I think his name was Andre, or something similar) physically assaulted him.

She asked if I’d be willing to make a statement that it wasn’t true. I said, of course, that I would be glad to. I don’t recall who I talked with after that… whether it was her lawyer, or somebody else, and if the story was either quashed or corrected instead after it ran… but I do remember that she sent me a nice note afterwards thanking me for my help.

It was an experience that left me feeling fond of Welch…and gave me an early lesson in the misery that fame can bring.

Malibu Burning is Now Available for Pre-Order

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Malibu Burning

My new thriller Malibu Burning, is now available for pre-order and will be out in September. It’s a standalone novel, but it’s set in the same “universe” as my Eve Ronin series. In fact, it takes place at the same time as Lost Hills. Here’s the story:

Hell comes to Southern California every October. It rides in on searing Santa Ana winds that blast at near hurricane force, igniting voracious wildfires. Master thief Danny Cole longs for the flames. A tsunami of fire is exactly what he needs to pull off a daring crime and avenge a fallen friend.

As the most devastating firestorms in Los Angeles’ history scorch the hills of Malibu, relentless arson investigator Walter Sharpe and his wild card of a new partner, Andrew Walker, a former US marshal, suspect that someone set the massive blazes intentionally, a terrifying means to an unknown end.

While the flames rage out of control, Danny pursues his brilliant scheme, unaware that Sharpe and Walker are closing in. But when they all collide in a canyon of fire, everything changes, pitting them against an unexpected enemy within an inescapable inferno.

I’m fortunate that the book has earned some early praise from some fantastic authors.

“Malibu Burning is a blistering thrill ride full of Southern California thieves, cops, and firefighters, all facing high stakes and imminent danger. Superbly researched and told, fast-paced, and downright fun, this is Lee Goldberg at his best!” —Mark Greaney, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Gray Man series

“By turns tense and rambunctious, wildly entertaining, and breakneck-paced, Lee Goldberg’s splendid Malibu Burning is pure storytelling pleasure from beginning to end.” —Megan Abbott, Edgar Award–, Anthony Award–, Thriller Award–, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize–winning author of The Turnout

“Malibu Burning is classic Lee Goldberg at the top of his game: a fast-paced, funny, and deeply satisfying page-turner.” —Jess Lourey, Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Quarry Girls

“An inventive, twisty, and funny caper from one of crime writing’s true pros. Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake would’ve loved this wild heist.” —Ace Atkins, New York Times bestselling author of Robert B. Parker’s Bye Bye Baby and The Heathens

“This is a book I couldn’t put down. Lee Goldberg is a master when it comes to building tension and writing heart-pounding action scenes. Malibu Burning is a roundhouse kick of a thriller, a true nail-biting race against time.” —Simon Gervais, former RCMP counterterrorism officer and author of The Last Protector and Robert Ludlum’s The Blackbriar Genesis

If Malibu Burning does well, it could be the start of a new series. This novel will be followed in November by Calico, another standalone thriller, and then the fifth Eve Ronin novel in January 2024.
 

The Joy of Sets

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I recently released a slim little book called THE JOY OF SETS: Interviews on the Sets of 1980s Genre Movies. 

Go back in time with me to the 1980s, when I was a young journalist and aspiring author, and visit the sets of movies like Back to the Future, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and A View To a Kill, where I interviewed Michael J. Fox, William Friedkin, Wes Craven, Chevy Chase, Robert Zemeckis, Roger Moore, and many others actors, directors, producers and screenwriters.

I put myself through college by writing freelance articles, primarily about movies, TV and publishing, for publications like Starlog, American Film, Cinefantastique, and the San Francisco Chronicle. I didn’t do it just to pay my tuition and support myself… I also saw it as a way to get a graduate school education in all aspects of the entertainment industry…learning lessons I’m still benefitting from today.

Lee interviewing John Houseman on the set of THE PAPER CHASE

I’d go to the set of a movie and interview everyone — the actors, director, writers, special effects guys, production designers, etc. I’d write an overall “set piece,” with quotes from everybody, then longer interviews with each person that I’d sell sepately (though Starlog commissioned and published most of them). 

The set pieces are a snapshot of film history, offering a revealing look at film-making in the 1980s, while also exploring the long careers of established talents like Kurt Russell and director Fred Schepsi at the top of their game…and introducing newcomers like Johnny Depp and director W.D. Richter, some of whom went on to greatness, and others who disappeared into obscurity. 

I think this Bookgasm review really captures why I decided to publish this collection:

Lee Goldberg’s collection indeed captures the feeling of reading about hotly anticipated movies in the blockbuster excess of the ’80s. One can sense the then-young film obsessive had to have felt with such access to the making of multimillion-dollar pictures. While not all of these Interviews on the Sets of 1980s Genre Movies (as the subtitle has it) entail movies worth watching, Goldberg’s reports never fail to entertain. As with his recent James Bond Films volume, one reason is revisiting a once-dominant type of film journalism; the larger is the in-hindsight delight of checking how forecasts panned out.

I hope you enjoy it!