Great thriller that kept me turning the pages. Great story, great writing and characters. Really enjoyable and would read this author again.

I knew I was going to love this book (even though I've not read the first 3) when I realized I had a fictional crush on Nils on page 4! He is hired by Ebben's grandmother to discover facts around his young wife's untimely death. Nils must travel from Minnesota to L.A.--a huge change for him. Maybe it's because I was born and raised in Minneapolis and lived there until we moved to California, but I loved watching him discover all the idiosyncrasies and the lingo as he needed to blend in. It's a great complicated storyline that has Nils investigating the world of show biz and mobsters. It was a wild ride for sure but worth it! Now I'll go back and read the first three!

I love this series and think this is a great addition to the story line. I liked the new setting for this one book and felt the mystery was very engaging. I always recommend this series to people and hope he keeps writing it!

“Dead West” is a story of films and family, devotion and deception, danger and redemption. It is part of Goldman’s series that features Nils Shapiro and Stone Arch Investigations, and new readers will find any necessary background information contained within the narrative. Beverly Mayer is worried about her grandson whose fiancé just died in Los Angeles. She is afraid that he has fallen in with the wrong crowd in Hollywood and is squandering the family fortune.

The story unfolds in Shapiro’s first person narrative. He talks directly to readers, and he talks to himself -- a lot; he even talks to himself when he is in a coma. He describes himself as a justice freak with an intrinsic need to find the truth. The plot is conversation driven, so readers hear what Shapiro says to people and what they say to him. The characters are complex, and relationships are well developed. People and details from previous books are seamlessly integrated into this story.


Upon arriving in Los Angeles and conducting a quick investigation, Shapiro immediately recognizes that the fiancé had been murdered and knows who did it, but of course he does not share that with readers. The story has a SoCal vibe, of course, with weather very different from Minnesota as well as unique L.A. geography, commerce, traffic, and famous movie culture.
This is a town where everything is for sale, houses do not have basements, and everyone has an idea for a series, including Shapiro.

Goldman seamlessly resolves complications from the past while keeping readers involved in the current case. I received a review copy of “Dead West” from Matt Goldman, Macmillan Publishing, and Forge Books. This is not a “formula” series, not just the same old plot but with different names. The characters are familiar and yet change and grow over time; every book is unique, readable, and compelling with humor as an added bonus. And, this one has a very interesting way to hide a safe.

Easy jobs are never easy. Nils Shapiro learns this the hard way in the land of milk and honey; Los Angeles. Arriving to check on the grandson of two very wealthy clients Nils is immediately taken into the world of film production and money raising. It’s astounding the lengths these people will take to get movies made. Scripts are rewritten and turned around. People are shot and poisoned and that’s just he first day. Along for the ride is Jameson White as wonderful and troubled a human as words can describe. I poured over every scene he was given and teared as he sought recovery from the wounds left by the trauma of a school shooting. Finding the guilty parties is as fun a ride as you can have between a book pages. Happy reading

I love this series. Being from MN really attracted me to these books. I knew the places he was talking about, could relate to the weather, etc. These books are a very easy read and hook you early. Plot was good, suspense was good, I really like how people in the book relate to each other and have non-customary relationships. will continue to read him.

DEAD WEST
Matt Goldman
Forge Books
ISBN-13: 978-1250191342
Hardcover
Thriller

Matt Goldman is not quite a household name yet, but he has been steadily building a reputation over the past several years as a solid and respectable author on the strength of his Nils Shapiro series. Shapiro is a Minneapolis private investigator who is the co-owner of a strategically growing firm in which he does the majority of the street work, as opposed to managing the office and crunching the numbers. Part of the reason for this particular assignment of duties is that Shapiro has a unique talent, that being the ability to make calculations the results of which are initially manifested emotionally --- call it a hunch, if you will --- which his consciousness eventually catches up with. To put in another way, he knows something before he figures out how he got there. One might call it a form of confirmation bias, except that Shapiro is almost always right, a talent that is quite helpful in DEAD WEST, the fourth and latest of the Shapiro novels.

Goldman in DEAD WEST transplants Shapiro from the familiar territory of Minnesota into southern California, a place that could not be more alien or different to him. The move is occasioned by a elderly and wealthy client named Beverly Meyer, who has some doubts about Ebben, her grandson. Meyer controls the purse strings on the family trust with iron fingers and is concerned that Ebben is a wasteling, given that he is in Hollywood and is apparently involved in the film industry. Matters are complicated by the recent death, apparently by natural causes, of Juliana, Ebben’s fiancee. All that Meyer wants is for Shapiro to travel to Hollywood, post-haste, and find out what Ebben is up to. This, Shapiro does, bringing along his friend and sidekick Jameson White, who is still reeling from a professional tragedy that entered into the personal realm. White is from southern California and knows his way around. Shapiro is also hoping that getting White out of Minnesota and back to the Los Angeles area will bring him out of his emotional shell. Shapiro of course almost from the moment his plane lands begins to compare and contrast the traffic, the weather, the buildings, and the people of Hollywood and L.A. with those of Minneapolis. These observations are quite astute and given that they are parceled out in dribs and drabs throughout the narrative they are worth the price of admission all by themselves. Shapiro is there on business, however, and makes contact immediately with Ebben at a memorial service arranged for Juliana. Shapiro can’t help but like Ebben, who seems to be a decent sort, and who is indeed involved in the film industry, though he is hardly racing through his trust fund monies to do so. Shapiro, however, also finds that peculiar talent of his warning him that Juliana, rather than dying unexpectedly but naturally, was murdered. Shapiro begins an investigation of his own, even as Jameson disappears on a folly of his own and cannot be found, at least initially. It develops that Jameson has a couple of secrets of his own, but then, so does just about everyone in DEAD WEST, including a mysterious and dangerous one-eyed eastern European tough guy who talks like...well, I’m not going to tell you who or what he talks like, as Goldman’s description of it is one of the best lines in the book, which contains several of them. There’s violence, humor, some complexity, and a satisfying ending to be had in DEAD WEST, and hopefully more to come.

Nils Shapiro is a terrific protagonist created by a masterful author. Goldman is not necessarily a literary writer but he is a masterful storyteller who is terrific at creating memorable images in each and all of his books while spinning simple beginnings into complex but comprehensible endings. Each of the (now) four books in the Shapiro series can be read on their own, something you will certainly want to do if you read DEAD WEST. Recommended.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
© Copyright 2020, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book - I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. I hadn't read any other Nils Shapiro books, so didn't know what to expect. Good story, well written & unexpectedly funny - the bit with the Porsche cracked me up!

Nils Shapiro is back! His life and outlook are a little different as he wades through his latest case- checking in on the (possible show business exploits) of a Minnesota family’s LA heir.
A vibrant setting, Hollywood movie exec (real) characters, and a solid plot, Goldman continues to impress and intrigue.

PI Nils Shapiro is persuaded by a wealthy old lady to travel to LA and check on Ebben, the grandson she believes to be squandering his trust fund on movie-related projects. It sounds like an easy assignment and a free trip someplace with much better weather than Minneapolis, so off Nils goes with his troubled buddy Jameson as his bodyguard. Nils quickly determines how Ebben is using his money, but while he’s at it he also discovers that Ebben’s recently deceased fiancée was actually murdered—and that Ebben was the likely target. As Nils investigates this crime, he finds various shady dealings among people in Ebben’s orbit. The PI’s breezy manner gives him a Spenser-like vibe, and Jameson’s mental health struggles after a traumatic experience make him more than just a faceless sidekick. This is an investigative team worth following.

Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for a digital advance review copy.

Free ARC from NET GALLEY

I enjoy Matt Goldman books and this one is no change for me. Nils Shapiro quickly reminds the reader when you carry a gun as part opf your job there4 is no easy job. Nils is in fine form with his witty dialogue that makes you remember early great books about a certain detective with his partner "Hawk". Great read for me.

Goldman’s 4th book in a great new series and PI crime noir. You might make comparisons to The famous Spenser series but Goldman’s writing is fast and effortless. In Dead West we find PI Shapiro in the land of Hollywierd after being asked by his clients grandmother to see what he is spending is trust fund on. Great story, highly recommend.