I was on a panel at Left Coast Crime with Boyd Morrison and he told me about this site...so I hurried right over. What a great resource! I've been busy browsing the forums and downloading books.
Speaking of books.....prepare yourself for some shameless self-promotion.
I'm a TV writer/producer (DIAGNOSIS MURDER, NERO WOLFE, MARTIAL LAW, etc.) and I write the MONK books, based on the TV series, which I also wrote for. All of my MONK books, by the way, are available in e-format.
I've recently put a bunch of my previously published, out-of-print books on the Kindle, Smashwords and Scribd, most for $1.99 or less. Here's the skinny on three of them...
THE WALK - It's one minute after the Big One. Marty Slack, a TV network executive, crawls out from under his Mercedes, parked outside what once was a downtown Los Angeles warehouse, the location for a new TV show. Downtown LA is in ruins. The sky is thick with black smoke. His cell phone is dead. The freeways are rubble. The airport is demolished. Buildings lay across streets like fallen trees. It will be days before help can arrive.
Marty has been expecting this day all his life. He's prepared. In his car are a pair of sturdy walking shoes and a backpack of food, water, and supplies. He knows there is only one thing he can do ... that he must do: get home to his wife Beth, go back to their gated community on the far edge of the San Fernando Valley.
All he has to do is walk. But he will quickly learn that it's not that easy. His dangerous, unpredictable journey home will take him through the different worlds of what was once Los Angeles. Wildfires rage out of control. Flood waters burst through collapsed dams. Natural gas explosions consume neighborhoods. Sinkholes swallow entire buildings. After-shocks rip apart the ground. Looters rampage through the streets.
There's no power. No running water. No order.
Marty Slack thinks he's prepared. He's wrong. Nothing can prepare him for this ordeal, a quest for his family and for his soul, a journey that will test the limits of his endurance and his humanity, a trek from the man he was to the man he can be ... if he can survive
The Walk.
"Harrowing and funny..."
—Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
"Can books be better than TV? You bet they can -- when Lee Goldberg's writing them. Get aboard now for a thrill ride," Lee Child
"Lee Goldberg's hard-to-classify but not-be-missed The Walk, set in the aftermath of a major Los Angeles earthquake, pokes fun at the TV industry in the midst of disaster..."
—Jon Breen, The Year In Mystery and Crime Fiction, 2004
THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE - One of the most acclaimed private eye novels of the decade, nominated for the Best Novel award by the Private Eye Writers of America, is finally available in a Kindle edition (it's not yet available on Smashwords or Scribd, but will be soon).
"As dark and twisted as anything Hammett or Chandler ever dreamed up [...] leaving Travis McGee in the dust." Kirkus, Starred Review
"Approaching the level of Lawrence Block is no mean feat, but Goldberg succeeds with this engaging PI novel." Publishers Weekly
Harvey Mapes is a 26-year-old security guard who spends his nights in a guard shack outside a gated community in Southern California, reading detective novels, watching reruns, and waiting for his life to finally start… which happens when Cyril Parkus, one of the wealthy residents, asks Harvey to follow his beautiful wife Lauren.
The lowly security guard jumps at the opportunity to fulfill his private eye fantasies and use everything he’s learned from Spenser, Magnum, and Mannix. But things don’t exactly go according to the books…or the reruns. As Harvey fumbles and stumbles through his first investigation, he discovers that the differences between fiction and reality can be deadly.
With the help of his mortgage broker neighbor and occasional lover Carol, Harvey uncovers a blackmail plot that takes a sudden and unexpectedly tragic turn…plunging him into a world of violence, deception and murder… and forcing him to discover what it really takes to be a private eye.
“A wonderfully fresh voice in the mystery genre, Goldberg will delight fans of Janet Evanovich and Robert Crais,” - Rick Riordan, author of "Percy Jackson & the Olympians"
"Lee Goldberg bravely marches into territory already staked out by some fierce
competition--Donald Westlake, Lawrence Block, the early Harlan Coben--and comes out virtually unscathed." The Chicago Tribune
"Goldberg has a knack for combining just the right amount of humor and realism with his obvious love for the PI genre and his own smart ass sensibilities. THE MAN WITH THE IRON ON BADGE is a terrific read. Goldberg is the real deal and should be on everyone’s must read list." Crimespree Magazine
MY GUN HAS BULLETS -
"The giddiest debut of the year!" Kirkus Reviews
When Beverly Hills Police Officer Charlie Willis pulls over a speeding Rolls Royce hell-bent for Neiman Marcus, he’s surprised to see Esther Radcliffe, the geriatric star of the TV series "Miss Agatha," behind the wheel. He’s even more surprised when she guns him down and keeps on driving. A few hours later, he wakes up in the intensive care unit…to find a William Morris agent, a network president, and the head of Pinnacle Studios standing at the foot of his bed. They have a proposal for him: in exchange for conveniently forgetting who shot him, they’ll make him the star of his own series, "My Gun Has Bullets." So Charlie trades in his real badge for a fake one…and so begins an uproarious but deadly romp through the wonderful world of TV make-believe…with real bullets. To make it to sweeps week, Charlie will have to survive two homicidal stuntmen, a rabid celebrity dog, a hit man-turned-producer, a psychotic old lady, a sex-crazed blackmailer, and vicious ratings…with only a stunning, leather-clad "Baywatch" beauty to help him.
“It will make you cackle like a sitcom laugh track. Goldberg keeps the gags coming right up to the end.”—Entertainment Weekly
"It's Bullets Over Baywatch!" USA Today
“A very funny novel…a pinch of Carl Hiaasen, a dash of Donald Westlake, and a heaping portion of avarice and inanity Hollywood Style. It’s boffo!”—Thomas Gaughan, Booklist
"'My Gun Has Bullets' takes aim and hits the bull's eye of all good satire -- the truth," Howard Gordon, Executive Producer, 24
"Lee Goldberg has written a winner!"
—Stephen J. Cannell, executive producer/creator "The A-Team," "21 Jump Street," and "The Rockford Files."
I hope you enjoy the books!
Lee