“If any of us get caught or killed,” Ian said, “the secretary will disavow any knowledge of our actions.”

“Who is the secretary?” [CIA Director] Healy asked.

“I don’t know,” Ian said. “It’s what the boss on the recording says to Peter Graves on every episode of Mission: Impossible, right before he wishes him luck and the tape explodes.”

“This isn’t a TV show,” Healy said. “This is reality.”

“You say that like there’s still a difference.”

Too often lately, life has been like one of Ian Ludlow's novels come to life. Which is a lot of pressure to work under, so much so that he's in danger of missing a deadline to submit his next book, without even getting it started.

Meanwhile, Wang Mei, the Chinese actress Ludlow recently helped defect, needs a job. And she's decided that seducing him is the way to achieve that. Ludlow's got connections, and he happens to be the only American she knows who trusts her. Ludlow is actually pretty easy to seduce, not only does he help her get a job on a TV show, he helps her with some PR to rehabilitate her image (with CIA guidance).

But back to the main story, Margo gets Ludlow brainstorming like he used to—not only to get a novel working, but she's pretty sure that he'll end up stumbling over an assignment so she can exercise her new-found skills. The official blurb sums up what they stumble upon in 1/3 of the words I'd take, so let's use it:

...the connection between a barbaric drug lord in Mexico, a homicidal rapist in California, a rogue citizens army in Texas, a raging TV pundit in New York, and two dead tourists in Portugal…before the President of the United States makes a catastrophic mistake that could resurrect the Soviet Union.

That sounds utterly ludicrous, but as things unfold it seems utterly plausible—and like something only a guy like Ludlow could uncover. And when it comes time for Ludlow and Margo (with help from Wang Mei and Ronnie Mancuso)* to stop this plot—the brakes come off and things get really ridiculous. I had a blast with it.

* I was really glad to see him again, by the way, he's a fun character

Mark Twain wrote, " Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t." (and others have said similar things, but my rule is quote Twain as often as possible) Fake Truth is another bit of evidence of that. As outlandish as a lot of the plot points and technology in the book seems, Goldberg has talked in interviews about how all of the tech exists, and that he had to keep changing parts of the novel when the parallels between truth and his fiction got a bit too close. This reminds me of the Leverage creators talking about how they had to take real crimes and scale them back to use them in the show because they seemed unbelievable otherwise. Thinking about the events of the book—either mid-read or after—and knowing that there's a very strong possibility that things like this have and are happening? It's truly disturbing. It makes you want to jump into novels.

Anyway, back to this novel—Goldberg once again pulls off this great magic trick by taking a ridiculous plot and goofy humor and somehow creating a solid thriller. I've seen others try this and it doesn't work out quite as well. If he can keep this up, I'll come back as long as he's able to publish these. Laughs and action, characters you can enjoy (even if you don't think you'd want to be anywhere near them in real life)—Fake Truth is a great way to spend some time.

Tracking courtesy of Charlie and Sunny, as always, of course!

 SPACES AND DICE ROLLS

1. Author is a woman -- Patricia Wentworth: Pilgrim's Rest (finished April 1, 2020)

2. Genre: mystery

3. Set in the twentieth century

4. Published in 2019

5. Published in 2018

6. Title has a color word in it

7. Author's last name begins with the letters A, B, C, or D -- Margery Allingham: Sweet Danger (finished April 2, 2020)

8. Author's last name begins with the letters E, F, G, or H.

9. Author's last name begins with the letters H, I, J, or K

10. Author's last name begins with the letters L, M, N or O

11. Author's last name begins with the letters P, Q, R, or S

12. Author's last name begins with the letters T, U, V, W, X, Y, or Z

13. Author is a man

14. Author is dead

15. Genre: romance

16. Genre: fantasy -- Marie Brennan: A Natural History of Dragons (finished April 6, 2020)

17. Genre: horror

18. Set in a school

19. Set in the UK

20. Set in a country that is not your country of residence

21. Set in Europe -- Joy Ellis: The Patient Man (finished April 7, 2020)

22. Set in Asia

23. Set in Australia/Oceania

24. Set in Africa

25. Snake - go back to 5

26. Part of a series that is more than 5 books long

27. Set during WWI or WWII

28. Written between 1900 and 1999

29. Someone travels by plane

30. Someone travels by train

31. Road trip -- Ellis Peters: A Morbid Taste for Bones (finished April 8, 2020)

32. Genre: thriller

33. Set in North America

34. Snake - go back to 1

35. Has been adapted as a movie

36. Set in Central or South America

37. Has won an award

38. Newest release by a favorite author

39. A reread -- Ngaio Marsh: Enter a Murderer (finished April 9, 2020)

40. Characters involved in the entertainment industry

41. Characters involved in politics

42. Characters involved in sports/sports industry

43. Characters involved in the law

44. Characters involved in cooking/baking

43. Characters involved in medicine

44. Characters involved in science/technology

45. A book that has been on your tbr for more than one year

46. A book that has been on your tbr for more than two years

47. Snake - go back to 19

48. A book you acquired in February, 2019.

49. Recommended by a friend -- Ngaio Marsh: A Man Lay Dead, plus Death on the Air and Other Stories (both books finished April 10, 2020)

(Rereading the first Roderick Alleyn mystery in honor of the friend who introduced me to them many years ago. -- ETA: Tagged on Marsh's short stories when I noticed that the audio of A Man Lay Dead runs just short of 5 hours 30 minutes.)

50. Has a domestic animal on the cover

51. Has a wild animal on the cover

52. Has a tree or flower on the cover

53. Has something that can be used as a weapon on the cover -- Ngaio Marsh: Scales of Justice (finished April 11, 2020)

(I used the present weekend buddy read for this one, as my print edition has fishing tackle on its cover -- hook, line and all.)

54. Is more than 400 pages long

55. Is more than 500 pages long

56. Was published more than 100 years ago

57. Was published more than 50 years ago

58. Was published more than 25 years ago

59. Was published more than 10 years ago

60. Was published last year

61. Cover is more than 50% red -- Anne Perry: Defend and Betray (finished April 16, 2020)

(Go figure, I could have used the audio version of Scales of Justice fo rthis one as well ...)

62. Cover is more than 50% green

63. Cover is more than 50% blue

64. Cover is more than 50% yellow

65. Snake - go back to 52

66. Part of a series that is more than 10 books long -- Ngaio Marsh: When in Rome (finished April 17, 2020)

(Nothing like Alleyn in Italy as a palate cleanser after the train wreck that Perry's book turned out ot be.)

67. Set in a city with a population of greater than 5 million people (link)

68. Something related to weddings on the cover

69. Something related to travel on the cover

70. Something related to fall/autumn on the cover

71. Involves the beach/ocean/lake 

72. Involves the mountains/forests -- Charles Portis: True Grit (finished April 18, 2020)

(I checked -- their trip takes them through the mountains, at least part of the way.)

73. Categorized as YA

74. Categorized as Middle Grade

75. Set in a fantasy world

76. Set in a world with magic

77. Has a "food" word in the title

78. Set in a small town (fictional or real)

79. Main character is a woman -- Sara Paretsky: Indemnity Only (finished April 21, 2020)

(Somehow I never got around to the first V.I.  Warshawski novel.  Now just may be the moment to make up for that.)

80. Main character is a man

81. Ghost story

82. Genre: urban fantasy

83. Genre: cozy mystery

84. Genre: police procedural -- Lee Goldberg: Lost Hills (finished April 22, 2020)

85. Written by an author who has published more than 10 books

86. Author's debut book

87. Snake - go back to 57

88. Comic/graphic novel

89. Published between 2000 and 2017

90. A new-to-you author

91. Snake - go back to 61

92. Reread of a childhood favorite

93. Author's first/last initial same as yours (real or BL handle)

94. Non-fiction

95. Memoir -- Anne Fadiman: Confessions of a Common Reader (finished April 22, 2020)

and Rafik Schami: Murmeln meiner Kindheit (My Childhood's Marbles) (finished April 23, 2020) (since Fadiman's book falls just a bit short of the game's minimum requirements).

96. From your favorite genre

97. Title starts with any of the letters in SNAKE

98. Title starts with any of the letters in LADDERS

99. Snake - go back to 69

100. Let BL pick it for you: post 4 choices and read the one that gets the most votes!

Poll posted separately -- BL community pick:

Val McDermid: Broken Ground (finished April 27, 2020).

RULES OF THE GAME:

 Everyone starts on 1. There are two alternative ways to move forward.

1. Read a book that fits the description on the space number as listed below and you can roll two dice to move forward more quickly.

2. However, if you can't find a book to fit the square, don't worry about it. You can read any book, and roll one dice on random.org.  This is to ensure that if a reader cannot find a book to fill the square, no one gets bogged down and can't move on.

All books must be at least 200 pages long. Short stories count, so long as you read enough of them from a collection to equal 200 pages. 

You do not need to hit space 100 with an exact roll. In order to win, you must complete space 100 as written.

ADDITIONS TO THE RULES

When you start on square 1, you need to read a book before you can roll. If your book fills the square, you get to roll two dice. If your book doesn't not fit the square, roll one dice only.

With respect to the ladder squares: You must read a book in order to climb the ladder. Once you finish the book for the ladder square, climb the ladder to the ending square. If you read a book that fits the ending square, roll two dice to move on, otherwise, roll one dice.

For audiobook substitutions, either check the print book to determine if it is more than 200 pages long, or any audiobook that is a minimum of 5 hours & 30 minutes qualifies.

Mulholland Drive. It was an intersection that generated lots of confusion, and not only because of the nearly identical street names. It was also the intersection of two cities, three neighborhoods, two law enforcement jurisdictions, and on this hot, smoggy Thursday afternoon in December, life and death.

So begins Lee Goldberg's new series—a story of a young, talented, fallible, inexperienced woman detective in the LA County Sheriff's Department. Eve Ronin is in this position thanks to being in the wrong place at the right time, and getting herself plastered all over social media just when the Department needed any good publicity it could get. Capitalizing on this, the Sheriff puts her in the high-profile Robbery-Homicide Division where she faces a lot of sexist backlash—and some that's not sexist, but based on the way she got the job and how unprepared she is for it. Still, Eve knows a good opportunity when she gets it and is determined to rise to the occasion, as hard as it will be.

That's the novel (and probably the series) in a nutshell—everything else is just window dressing. But man, I tell you, it's great window dressing.

First off, you've got this case. A single mother of two (no longer romantically involved with the man she's living with, but unable to move out), her kids and their dog are missing. What's present in their home is a lot of blood. I mean a lot. Enough that there's little hope that any of them are still alive, but Eve can't rule out the possibility. So she really has two investigations to get into—the multiple murder case, and a missing persons case. Given the grizzly nature of the crime scene, there's a lot of public attention on this case, and a lot of pressure on the rookie detective. That there is enough for most novels, but we get more.

What I loved about this book (and, from what I hear in interviews, the series to come), is how it displays that everyone in the L.A.-area is in or adjacent to the entertainment industry. Eve's mother and the probable victim are chasing stardom, the likely victim's ex-boyfriend works on a film crew (as does his alibi). There are detectives shopping script ideas around, and clearly will jump on new "material." You'd think that with the sheer number of police procedurals/PI novels set in LA that this would be well-trodden territory, but it really isn't. How is that possible? I'm so glad that Goldberg committed to this idea.

At the end of the court was a poorly maintained, unfenced ranch home with two cars in the driveway— an old Ford Taurus with oxidized paint and a Nissan Sentra. A woman in her early thirties paced anxiously in front of the house.

“She’s keyed up,” Duncan said as Eve pulled up to the driveway. “You better talk to her, woman- to- woman.”

“Good idea, because you know we don’t even have to speak to each other,” Eve said, putting the car into park. “Our uteruses can communicate telepathically.”

“I think the correct term is ‘uteri.’”

But what makes this (and any series) work are the characters. Eve is a great character, while her mom was off chasing stardom (and primarily finding work as an extra), she did the heavy lifting when it came to raising her younger siblings. Now she's taken that sense of responsibility to her career and those she comes into contact with.

Eve's mom is still in pursuit of the Hollywood dream, if not for her (though that'd be her preference), than for Eve. When Eve shows up on TV being cornered by a reporter, Jen is more focused on how Eve looks than the case in question. When she does think about the case, it's in relation to how Eve can turn it into a movie deal. I cracked up at Eve's first conversation with her (and enjoyed the rest), but can easily see where she could be overused on the long-term, and she could easily turn into a one-note joke. I know Goldberg can do something interesting with her if he wants to, I just hope he does.

Meanwhile, Eve's younger sister, Lisa is a delight. She's a nurse as well as Eve's main source of emotional support (and ice cream). The cynic in me thinks she might as well be named Nurse Bechdel Test. But let's ignore him—she's a great character for Eve to bounce off of—a sounding board for the emotional beats and struggles that Eve endures thanks to her promotion and career—as well as something that humanizes Eve. She's not just a cop, she's a sister with strong maternal instincts/reflexes, who needs someone to take care of her occasionally. I thoroughly enjoyed their interaction and the way they fed off each other, and her continuing presence in the series bodes well for it (and, yeah, probably makes sure these books pass that particular test).

Then there are Eve's colleagues (who get more real estate in the book than her family does, but I'm going to cover briefly here because I'm rambling). I'll start with her partner, Duncan—a jaded veteran detective nearing retirement. That gives him a certain detachment from Eve's catapulting into Homicide, as long as her presence doesn't interfere with his exit, what does he care. In the meantime, he'll pass on some wisdom and cynicism. I loved his character and really hope that retirement stays away for a while.

Almost every other detective (both in the Sheriff's department and the LAPD) doesn't share his detachment, and will not actively try to derail Eve, but will be skeptical and antagonistic to her. The nicest thing anyone will say about her is that she's starved for attention and fame. The Sheriff on the other hand, will exploit Eve whenever he can (he needs her to be a star to deflect attention away from serious problems in the department). It's hard to tell if he has any real confidence in her, or if it's all opportunistic. I'm not sure it matters much.

I would've liked a little more depth to this story, but just a tad. Any more and it would've slowed down the fast, driving pace and tension—which wouldn't have been worth the trade-off. I'd also have liked to gone a bit more in-depth here myself, but if I do, I'd probably not get this posted for two more months, so we'll call this good.

I haven't read every novel Goldberg has written, but I have read 26 of them (so far), so I feel like I have a pretty decent idea of what kind of writer he is. There is something distinctly Goldberg-esque about Lost Hills and Eve. At the same time, there's a freshness and verve to them that is new—it felt like Goldberg has stretched himself to try something in these pages and it worked—a reward for both author and readers. Eve Ronin is a fantastic character that I hope to spend many years reading and exploring the world of. You should, too.

For me, "Lost Hills" was a lottery book: offered free on Amazon just before its release in January 2020.

 I was hooked by the premise: a new series about a woman detective, promoted to homicide from robbery on the strength of a viral video of her making an off-duty arrest of a movie star tough-guy who was assaulting a woman. That he was the star of the "Deathfist" franchise and that she took him down and held him down when he took a swing at her explained why the video went viral.

Although I now know that he's written thirty novels, including the Monk series, when I picked *Lost Hills" I'd never heard of Lee Goldberg. Which is great news because this time I won the lottery and I've got a new back-catalogue of books to read through.

From the start of the novel, I was impressed by the assured storytelling, the lean prose, the puzzle of a bloody gruesome crime and the freshness of the characters who vary from the detective tropes just enough to make them interesting and not so much that it stretches credibility.

I liked the apparent realism of the way the policing is done. Nothing too flashy or too histrionic, just hard work, determination and a little luck. The plot is clear, doesn't cheat and still managed to catch me by surprise when everything turned out to be different than I'd expected.

The final action sequence would make wonderful TV. The interplay between Eve Ronin, her colleagues, her bosses and her irrepressibly delusional mother all round Eve Ronin out and make me want to know more about her.

I also enjoyed the playful way Goldberg references his own work and the Harry Bosch series. At one point a fellow detective is explaining to Eve Ronin why he didn't collect some evidence from a witness. He says:

“Have you ever seen that TV show Monk, about that uptight detective who is a clean freak and wants everything to be even?”

“He had OCD.”

“Yeah, well, she’s like him. Can’t stand dirt."

That's not the kind of in-joke many authors get to make.

Then we get the nod to Michael Connelly's books. Eve Ronin, who leveraged her moment of viral video fame into a promotion, is on a long drive so...

"To stay awake, she cranked up the AC to keep herself uncomfortably chilled and listened to one of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch crime novels. Bosch was an LAPD detective who, over a thirty-year career that spanned about as many books, solved one major murder after another and yet his bosses still doubted his skill and integrity, regularly undermined his work, and repeatedly investigated him for misconduct. It frustrated her even more than it did him. His problem, she thought, was that he didn’t know how to play politics. She’d already proven that she could. Now she had to prove she could do the job."

I'll be back for more Eve Ronin books as they come out. In the meantime, I'm going to be catching up with Goldberg's other books.

This is my first Lee Goldberg book so, until Char told me, I didn't know he was the guy who wrote "Monk".  I'm glad I know because now I can see he's being playful. At one point a fellow detective is explaining to Eve Ronin why he didn't collect some evidence from a witness. He says:

“Have you ever seen that TV show Monk, about that uptight detective who is a clean freak and wants everything to be even?”

“He had OCD.”

“Yeah, well, she’s like him. Can’t stand dirt."

That's not the kind of thing many authors get to do.

I also like the way he built in a reference to the Harry Bosch books. Eve Ronin, who leveraged her moment of viral video fame into a promotion is on a long drive so...

"To stay awake, she cranked up the AC to keep herself uncomfortably chilled and listened to one of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch crime novels. Bosch was an LAPD detective who, over a thirty-year career that spanned about as many books, solved one major murder after another and yet his bosses still doubted his skill and integrity, regularly undermined his work, and repeatedly investigated him for misconduct. It frustrated her even more than it did him. His problem, she thought, was that he didn’t know how to play politics. She’d already proven that she could. Now she had to prove she could do the job."

I'm guessing Goldberg knows Connelly well.