Eve Ronin thrillers are always exciting and gripping and this one confirms my idea.
There's plenty of twists, action, and I was surprised by all of them. I couldn't guess the culprit and read it as fast as I could.
Lee Goldberg is an excellent storyteller and this books is highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Movieland is another page-turner in the Eve Ronin detective series. This is the fourth book in the series and, although I’ve read all three previous books, I believe it would do just fine as a standalone read. (This is always one of the first things I look for when I’m considering reading a book that isn’t the first in the series.)

Eve Ronin is a very young detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and operates out of the Lost Hills station, which includes the towns of Calabasas, Agoura Hills, and importantly to this book, Malibu Creek State Park. Once again, Goldberg fills the book with local color and detail. I’ve had the privilege of visiting the general area several times as part of a family visit, and his descriptions are great.

Eve Ronin is an excellent main character - driven to succeed in what is still a very male-dominated field and who has made some enemies among her fellow officers via a corruption scandal she uncovered. She can be headstrong, which can get her in trouble with her commanding officers. Her partner is the lovable, soon-to-retire, Duncan. He tries to give her useful advice while chomping down on any kind of food he can get his hands on. This story revolves around a series of shootings in and around Malibu Creek State Park, all done with a shotgun using bird shot (very small pellets). There are quite a few suspects and we meet several colorful characters along the way.

I hope there will be more Eve Ronin books in the future!

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the opportunity to read an advance readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

It took me a little longer to get invested in the latest Eve Ronin installment but I'll blame that on covid which I tested positive for right after I started reading this book. About the halfway point things picked up and got really interesting. I was actually surprised by who the shooter ended up being. I honestly had no idea who it was going to be. I still enjoy the friendship between Eve and her partner Duncan and I was very happy with the ending of this book. I do hope to see some growth in Eve as the series continues. It's like at the beginning of a relationship and you find your partners quirks cute but once you're married those things make you want to scream. That's kind of how Eve is to me at this point. I like her but her hangups with her family, her seld righteous beliefs, her lack of respect for authority or even the advice of her partner is starting to grate on my nerves. I don't want her to lose her edge but it's time to start growing up a little.

This is the fourth installment in this police procedural series, and while the author provides enough background for the reader to understand the ongoing subplots to read this as a stand-alone, I started at the beginning and think it’s worthwhile in order to fully appreciate the hostile and dangerous environment the protagonist is working in.

Eve Ronin has leveraged her inadvertent social media popularity into a promotion to become the youngest homicide detective with the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Department in the Calabasas area, and many of her colleagues aren’t happy about it. She is partnered with Duncan Pavone, the best detective at the station, but he is counting the days until retirement, so she needs to soak up as much wisdom from him before he leaves. They respond to a call that hikers have found a woman shot at Malibu Creek State Park, and Duncan fears this is one more in a series of sniper attacks that have occurred in the area, beginning before Eve joined the station, but have been kept from the public to avoid creating a panic.

The cases in the first three installments were pretty straightforward, but included Eve making leaps that solved the case without plot points written so the reader could also have reached similar conclusions. In this installment, the author thankfully abandoned that habit, including several possible suspects, thus allowing for a much more satisfying conclusion, and making this my favorite in the series so far. It has lots of action and twists, resulting in a quick, entertaining read, and I particularly enjoyed the Author’s Note at the end of each installment, where the author includes real life information about events that have occurred in the same geographical area the novel takes place and the actual case that inspired the story. I look forward to Eve’s next case!

NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer kindly provided me an ARC of this book, which I have read and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

This is the fourth in the Detective Eve Ronin series; it is the third that I have read.

Eve is a minor celebrity, as some of her actions in the past were caught on video, went viral, and, much to the consternation of some in the LA County Sheriff Department, led to her early promotion to detective. While she has some supporters within the department, there are still others out to get her. Eve is relentless in her pursuit of criminals, while somehow maintaining a sense of humor and resonance with the reader. Her quick thinking and ability to read clues indicate she is well deserved of her promotion….although she still has a lot to learn. She is helped in the learning process by her soon to retire partner, Duncan “Donuts” Pavone, an very enjoyable character.

Eve’s case in Movieland involves a shooting in Malibu Creek State Park, which was once the location of many films (hence, the title!). It seems there is a history of shootings here that have been covered up. Is a serial killer loose?

This book, as were the prior ones I have read, was well written and fast moving with good character development and touches of humor. I read a lot of mysteries/police procedurals; this series seems to be a cut above many others. This reads well as a standalone, but it should encourage readers to seek out the prior ones in the series.

The fourth book about Eve Ronin and her partner Duncan Pavone. This series only gets better and better and it reminds me a lot of Michael Connelly and his books. I love the LA vibes, the humor and the characters. i hope this will be a long lasting series because it's among the best out there. Highly recommended!

Thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for this advanced copy.

mystery, thriller, suspense, law-enforcement, corruption, California, due-diligence, forensics, family-drama, family-dynamics, friction, friendship, freedom-of-the-press, tv-film-industry, situational-humor, verbal-humor, snarky, sniper, snobs, murder-investigation, admissible-evidence

Police corruption with the brass totally ignoring it continues to be hazardous to Eve's health. Good thing that her more experienced partner has her back, because this time things really get ugly. And then there's the whole thing between the Park Service acting blind to anything that would cause bad press. The case begins with a shotgun. A known and particularly obnoxious journalist is shot, and her companion killed, but she keeps feeding information to the public that compromises the case. As Eve and "Donuts" dive deep into the case, more victims surface and yet another murder. But are they all by the same shooter? A tight read with almost as much humor as suspense!
It's a good but disturbing read, especially in this time of police issues.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Thomas & Mercer via NetGalley. Thank you!

Eve Ronin and her partner Duncan Pavone are in the thick of the action again when a sniper may be stalking the tranquil parkland in and around Malibu Creek State Park. The latest book in this series is a standout. Lee Goldberg gives us more about the area, more twists, and more characters with an axe to grind.

Duncan is set to retire in less than a month, which will leave Eve on her own, in a PD that has reason to really dislike her: too much success, a pending TV series, a rapid promotion, the problem of not always following rules/chain of command, nor “playing well with others.” Eve also needs to cope better with family members, who provide some comic relief. The pressure is on Duncan and Eve to solve this case quickly, keep safe, and eliminate quite a few suspects. The best book in the series, which keeps getting better. Looking forward to more and more. Highly recommended. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this title.

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the copy of Movieland. I can usually start a series before reading the previous books, but I should have started with book one for this series because it felt like there was so much backstory essential to this one. I think if you have read the rest of the series you will love this one! I still enjoyed the book, I just think I would have enjoyed it more if I knew more about Eve and her past with the sheriff’s office. At first the constant mentions of food and how much Duncan ate bothered me, but I guess I got used to it by the end.
I liked the relationship between Eve and Duncan even though I didn’t really like either of them. The other characters were well defined and I realized at the end that I had guessed who the sniper was early on because I “knew” the characters. The great writing propelled me to the finish, not surprising when you look at the author’s writing credits! The story was great and perplexing and I look forward to reading the previous books in this series.

I tend to enjoy stories where the setting is a character on its own, if you know what I mean (think Jane Harper’s novels set in arid Western Australia). In Lee Goldberg’s Movieland, Malibu Creek State Park is both a beautiful location for campers, tourists, and hikers,it’s also a great setting for murder.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department homicide detectives Eve Ronin and Duncan Pavone are assigned to investigate a murder at the Park, which Detective Pavone thinks might be a recurrence of sniper attacks that went on before Detective Ronin joined the force.

There have been seen victims in the past fourteen months, so there should be a task force or something, right? But the bosses refuse to see a connection. The two detectives are stonewalled, threatened, and ordered to keep quiet.

Ronin and Pavone are on their own in the wilds of Malibu Creek, where they have to fight to make it out alive, in addition to solving the murders. have to make it out alive.Good thriller, lots of fun especially for a SoCal refugee! Thanks to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for this review.

Eve continues to make waves in this latest installment. The mystery in this book is engaging and keeps you guessing. You are able to spend more time getting to know Eve’s family, which adds comic relief to the story. Eve is starting to learn, a little, about how to play well with others in the department. She is also learning when to push the envelope even further.

I enjoyed the book and look forward to seeing what happens with Eve in the future.

Thank you to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for the ARC.

I love a good mystery story that has a strong female lead detective. This was my first Lee Goldberg book and certainly not my last. Loved the drama, the suspense, and the conclusion.

This book was so good! I want to see more from this author in the future!! I couldn't put this book down. What a page turner!!!

Even though this was the 4th in a series, I was still able to easily read it.

This was a fast paced and thrilling book!

Lee Goldberg knows how to keep his readers hooked and interested in his stories!

Movieland by Lee Goldberg is a fast moving, totally compelling work of crime fiction featuring L. A. County Sheriff’s Department Detective Eve Ronin and her partner (Donuts) Duncan Pavone currently assigned to the Lost Hills police station in Calabasas, California.

The partners are initially called to the scene of a robbery but are soon diverted to Malibu Creek State Park, once a movie ranch owned by 20th Century Fox, where two women have been shot, one fatally. Duncan feels that this is yet another in a series of sniper attacks that began long before his partner came to the Lost Hills station and that have been “covered up” and hidden from the public since the revelation of a serial shooter could panic the public and result in a loss of tourist revenue.

This is a narrative liberally peppered with amazing characters and fire cracker revelations that ultimately questions notions of identity and morality as it unveils some of the darkest secrets that are often hidden in plain sight.

Set aside some time to escape into the tangled web that is Lee Goldberg’s MOVIELAND.

Like the previous three books in this series, Movieland was an entertaining and well plotted thriller.

It starts with a shooting in the Malibu State Park. Zena Faust, rabid environmentalist blogger is found shot through with birdshot but grimly hanging onto life. Her girlfriend Kim was not so lucky. The pair had gone to the park for a quiet weekend of camping and relaxation when they were attacked.

Eve Ronin’s partner Duncan (donuts) Pavone points out there have been previous reports of shotgun shooting at caravans, tents and homes although it is not obvious that there are any links. Not long after, a man, Netter, is shot in the head while driving home in the same area. His car crashes down an embankment and he dies instantly. Interesting but does it mean anything? To cap it all Eve herself is shot at as is doing some reconnaissance in the area. She is injured but still raring to go and she is very, very angry!

How do all these incidents link together, if indeed they even do? A suspect has been arrested but Eve is dubious. As usual Eve throws herself headlong into the action, risking life and limb. Donuts despairs of her as he is retiring in a week and she seems not to have learned any restraint. Who will have her back when he is gone? The Sheriff and her Captain are losing patience with her unorthodox and lone wolf shenanigans.

To be frank, I am too. The books are very entertaining with lots of exciting action but Eve cannot continue to punish her body in this way. I hope she learns to slow down just a little in future stories, to use her brain more than other “Deathfist”! Many thanks to Netgalley and Thomas &Mercer for the much appreciated arc which I reviewed voluntarily and honestly.

First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, Lee Goldberg, and Thomas & Mercer for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.

Always eager to get my hands on the latest publication by Lee Goldberg, I turned to the new Eve Ronin novel. Working on an intriguing angle, Goldberg helps progress his protagonist’s development while reminding readers of some important backstory. With an intense crime thriller woven into the larger narrative, the book takes many twists until its culmination, while also offering a few tantalizing subplots to offset the main themes. Goldberg shows that he’s well worth the time invested in this novel.

Eve Ronin has never had it easy within the Los Angeles Sheriff Department (LASD), having risen to fame after an amateur video depicted her defending a helpless individual. The animosity of her quick promotion has surrounded her, as she’s been unable to work with any of her colleagues, save one. Her current partner, Duncan ‘Donuts’ Pavone, has stuck by her, mostly because his retirement is only weeks away.

When Ronin and Pavone are called to the scene of a shooting, they are left baffled as to what’s happened. Two campers were shot in the field of a property used by some movie studios, one dead from her injuries. Ronin works as many angles as she can, trying to determine who might have wanted these women killed and why. Unbeknownst to her, the surviving victim is an active blogger who has amassed a number of enemies in the social media world.

As Ronin and Pavone try to make headway, other shootings from the past come to light, leaving them to wonder if this might be part of a larger crime spree. The evidence has yet to confirm that and the forensics are sparse, leaving the LASD detectives to pull at any threads before them. When a prominent leader in the community is shot, things ramp up to a new level of intensity, forcing Ronin and Pavone to take a second and third look at the evidence before them.

All the while, Ronin is trying to juggle work with the news that her life story and crime fighting is being turned into the latest direct-to-streaming television program. With writers trying to paint her in ways that are not entirely realistic to parents who have come out of the woodwork to offer up their own services, and even Pavone who wants in on the action as a creative consultant. Ronin will have to keep it all in check, as a shooter and killer remains at large. Could it all come crashing down before it’s even started? Goldberg does well with their fourth novel in the series, showing that there is a lot left to discover about Eve Ronin and those around her.

Having been saddled with a number of heavier reads in the last few weeks, I needed something a little lighter. Goldberg’s piece was the perfect pick, as it mixes a quick narrative with a captivating story that kept me entertained throughout. While it may be a but of irony, I could see the novel (and the rest of the series) working well as a television program, with the perfect balance of crime thriller and humour throughout. Goldberg has a great deal of experience when it comes to writing in all forms and it shows with this piece, which is both an easy and quick read for those seeking something light.

Eve Ronin has been through a great deal, as series fans will known. While Goldberg does summarise much of it in this book, the entirety of the series shows how Ronin has struggled to defend her position within the LASD. She’s been forced to juggle an intense workload with some interesting goings-on in her personal life, always keeping her on her toes. While she may never win over all those within the LASD, Ronin tries to stand tall and do her job without letting the politics drag her down. Still, there is more to Ronin that the reader has yet to discover, and I hope Goldberg will keep pursuing her development in upcoming novels.

While not all books are created equal, there are times a reader just needs something light and entertaining. This is one of those pieces, allowing the reader something exciting and fast-paced without requiring too much thinking. Goldberg uses a strong narrative and good plot development to hook the reader, while adding great characters and a story arc that provides something else to enjoy. I discovered Goldberg through another series, but find myself completely enthralled with this one as well, which inserts just enough humour to keep me coming back and excited whenever I see publication news about a new instalment.

Kudos, Mr. Goldberg, for helping ease me into the summer months with the first of what I hope are many great ‘beach’ or ‘travel’ reads. I look forward to whatever else you have in store for your fans.

I knew about the Malibu Creek park shooter case, and the author takes that nonfictional incident as a story for his novel...with a whole different conclusion. Rogue cop, Eve, and her partner keep this one interesting in a backdrop of police corruption. Seems like there will be more coming!

Movieland was full of action as Eve & Duncan search for a serial sniper. Even though Eve is battling with the officers Lost Hills station, she never gives up. The 4th installment of the Eve Ronin series is even better than the last. Eve and Duncan have quickly become my favorite crime fighting duo. With their fun banter and their dedication to solving crimes. I can’t get enough of this series!

*ARC provided by NetGalley for an honest review.

This is book 4 of the series, but the first I have read. It definitely reads like a TV show or movie, which is no surprise, with the author's background. Eve and Duncan are both relatable characters, and the true to live job conditions help to really make the book more interesting and to show why each character is acting like they do. Eve is definitely a character I would be happy to read more books with, so I will definitely be going back and reading the previous three, and all future ones! The mystery at hand seems chaotic with no connection between shootings, but threats a plenty, and a dead body. With red herrings a plenty, this book will have you reading LONg into the night! Don't miss this fast paced mystery!