Truly mind-bending time travel in this well written novel. Jumping from the 1882 mining town of Calico in the desert near Las Vegas to current Barstow, California, modern day detective Beth McDade comes across conflicting information regarding bodies found in the Mojave. Fast paced and well characterized, recommended reading.

“There was a saying about Barstow that Beth heard when she’d arrived from LA three years ago. The interstate here only goes in one direction: away. Nobody wants to be in Barstow and those who do, you don’t want to know.”

My thanks to Severn House for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Calico’ by Lee Goldberg.

Previous to this I have only read Goldberg’s collaborations with Janet Evanovich though knew that he had written many books.

From a quick look at the premise I thought this would be a straightforward police drama in which disgraced ex-LAPD detective, Beth McDade, is adjusting to her new life as a homicide detective with the Barstow Sheriff’s Department. I expected a murder or two though the plot quickly took a turn into X-Files territory.

At 02:00 on 2nd February 2019 a disoriented man stumbles into the road wailing, apparently terrified by the dinosaur sculptures at the rear of Peggy Sue’s jukebox-shaped diner. He is hit and killed by a motor home, whose driver had been briefly distracted by a lightning storm and the sound of an explosion at the nearby military base. The victim appears to be a transient as he is dressed in tattered, filthy clothing. He has no ID though there are a few old coins in his pockets.

Not long after Beth McDale is called out to a construction site where an old skeleton had been unearthed when ground was broken on a new project. The bones and casket appear to be over a hundred years old yet when a titanium elbow implant and two dental implants are found the investigation becomes stranger. The serial numbers come back to an Owen Slader, who has only recently been reported missing. The last pings on his phone and GPS were at 02:00 on February 2nd, 2019 quite close to where the man was run over.

Beth is determined to uncover the truth and as she does each discovery seems more shocking including uncovering a number of bizarre incidents that took place on the 2nd of February in other years. She also becomes aware that there are shadowy figures seeking to halt her investigation.

Meanwhile, in February 1882 a stranger walks out of the desert into the struggling mining town of Calico. When asked his name he says ‘Ben Cartwright’. Separated from everything he knows, he hopes that he can find a second chance in this strange old world. 

The narrative moves between these two timelines, creating a work of speculative fiction that reminded me of the novels of the late Michael Crichton. As a reader of science fiction I had no difficulties with the SF themes in ‘Calico’ and felt that they were well integrated.

I enjoyed the scattered references that included the mysterious skeleton being nicknamed by Beth as ‘Marty McFly’ or the mentions in the 1880s by Ben Cartwright of aspects of 20th-century pop culture. This was especially ironic given that at first he recalled the plot of Ray Bradbury’s ‘A Sound of Thunder’ and checks the soles of his shoes to make sure that he hasn’t stepped on any butterflies.

Lee Goldberg has experience as a screenwriter and I found it quite a visual novel and could easily imagine it being adapted for the large or small screen.

I felt that Goldberg made good use of his Mojave desert settings in both time periods, drawing on his readers’ senses to create an immersive experience. Calico does exist and is an official ‘ghost town’ that has been built on the ruins of the original mining town. Barstow and the surrounding areas also exist, including Peggy Sue’s 1950s themed diner. I felt that by utilising real world locations Goldberg grounded his plot allowing for its more extraordinary aspects to feel more organic.

Overall, I enjoyed ‘Calico’ very much. While I am not a great fan of western novels, it was quite entertaining. There does seem scope for a sequel featuring further investigations for Beth McDade.

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Detective Beth McDade left LAPD under a cloud, ending up in the Barstow station of the San Berardino County Sheriff’s Office. Much of the county is uninhabited desert, and the crimes she deals with involve gangs or drugs. Then two bodies show up near the Calico Ghost Town, and her job gets much more interesting. On the surface, one death is accidental, the other natural. One is the loser in a human-RV race, the other is the skeleton of a long-buried miner. Below the surface, each body has some puzzling, almost impossible aspects that sends McDade down a twisty and dangerous rabbit hole.
Lee Goldberg has written in a wide variety of genres, from the coziest of cozies to the gritty and raunchy. Calico is a genre all its own, combining a standard police procedural, a historical western, X-Files style government skullduggery, and time travel a la Back to the Future and H.G. Wells. It all adds up to one rollicking good yarn.

Calico by Lee Goldberg is part western, part sci-fi, and part mystery.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Severn House, and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.


My Synopsis:    (No major reveals, but if concerned, skip to My Opinions)
Beth McDade used to be an LAPD detective, but fell from grace.

She now is a detective in Barstow, California, a rough city in the Mojave desert.  Basically, it was the only place Beth could go if she wanted to continue in police work.

On February 2, 2019, Owen Slader and his vehicle disappear, and Beth starts looking for him.

On February 2, 1882, a man arrives in the mining town of Calico,  and makes a new life for himself.   Beth discovers his bones in a shallow grave in 2019.  His body has some strange inconsistencies for a body over 100 years old.

On February 2 2019,  Beth starts investigating the death of a man who ran out of the desert and directly into the path of a motor home.  The driver of the RV had been startled by the loud electrical storm.  It was definitely an accident.  However, the body of the dead man has some strange inconsistencies for someone that just died.

The two bodies lead Beth and the coroner (Amanda Selby)  in a direction Beth never thought she'd take.....and people want to her stop looking.


My Opinions:
First, I don't generally read historical novels, time-travel novels, westerns, or conspiracy thrillers.  This was all four....and it was one of the most epic and compelling novels I have read in a long time.

The dual time-lines were handled really well.

I absolutely loved the characters.  Neither Beth nor Amanda refused to give up on solving the mystery.  Ben and Wendy were an amazing couple  who had to over-come so much to make sure their descendants survived. The people they encountered were so interesting, that it "almost" made 1882 bearable.  I like how the author provided a few obnoxious characters to make things realistic (Bill Knox and for some reason Brittany Cartwright come to mind).

The writing and plot was really good, and I absolutely LOVED the last line of the book.  I thought it was hilarious!

That being said....it was a long book and it occasionally dragged.  Even though I was enjoying most of it, I thought I'd never get through it. Seems contradictory, but...

Anyway, overall, it was better than I expected (and a lot deeper than his Monk series).

We all have heard of the Mojave desert in California which is the setting for these Lee Goldberg detective thriller. Imagine being a detective there. Not too much to do there you'd think but then you'd be wrong. When Beth McDade, an ex LPD detective, finds herself with a busy shift involving a vagrant run over by a motor home and a skeleton, later dated to the 1870's, dug up on a building site she is on to something extraordinary. It gradually emerges their fates are intertwined and we are taken on a time-travel journey with a fascinating outcome.
Certainly original, certainly gripping and just a little disturbing this is a novel to challenge conventional thinking authored with real style by Lee Goldberg.

An original and twisty thriller mixing sci-fi, historical fiction and a tightly knitted mystery that kept me reading and on the edge.
A novel that surprised me with all the twists and the excellent storytelling was one of the best feature.
It's one of those books you cannot stop reading and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

After a scandal forces her from the LAPD, Beth McDade lands a job as a detective in Barstow, California. Nothing much happens in this middle of nowhere location until one night when a motorhome hits a vagrant. It appears to be a tragic accident, only no one knows who the vagrant is. And the autopsy turns up some surprising things. Can Beth figure out what is going on?

Since I normally enjoy Lee Goldberg’s books, I picked this one up without paying much attention to anything about it. As a result, I wasn’t aware it was a blend of Police Procedural, Science Fiction, and Western. It was initially shocking when I realized where the book was going, but then I got caught up in the story, which unfolds in the present and the past. It helped that I grew to enjoy the characters, although the raw nature of the first chapter made it a little hard for me. This book definitely has more content than the cozies I typically read. However, the book tried to do too much. There’s a subplot that really doesn’t go anywhere, and some of the story set in the past gets summarized for us. Meanwhile, the last couple of chapters have a bit too much exposition for me. I appreciate the attempt to do something different, but the execution could have been better.

Author Lee Goldberg's ingenious genre-bending paranormal thriller combines mystery, pathos, and humor into a plot premise that is both wondrous and believable. Charged with investigating two crimes—one of a missing man and the other a deadly hit-and-run—homicide detective Beth McDade thinks they have only one thing in common: both incidents happened within a few yards and a few seconds of each other during a lightning storm near the Old West ghost town of Calico. But as Beth discovers other surreal connections between the two incidents, she soon finds herself in the crosshairs of Bill Knox, the security chief for the local Marin Corps logistics base, whose threats become less thinly veiled.

As always, Goldberg's leading characters—Beth and the missing person, Owen Slader—are lovable, flawed, and redeemed by their quick thinking and brave acts. Goldberg masterfully blends the sometimes harsh realities of 150 years past with the forensic science of the present, creating a believable scenario in which only time holds the answer to both mysteries. — Josie Brown, author, The Housewife Assassin's Handbook mystery series

After hearing Goldberg speak about his novel, I knew immediately that I had to read it. It's not every day that I get to read anything about Barstow where I lived for two years when my dad was stationed at Camp Irwin in the early 50's. I remembered the base as a wonderful playground for children-after all, the whole place was a gigantic sandbox. But my parents remembered it as a hellhole and that's how Goldberg begins his book.
Officer Beth McDade was busted from the LAPD for sex with a subordinate. To stay a cop in Ca., she had to accept the dregs of assignments-Barstow, where Death Valley meets dead career choice. Normally life isn't too exciting but on 2/2/2019 there was a fiery explosion at the Marine base, a crazed guy hit by a motor home, and the disappearance of Owen Slader, an Anthony Bourdain wannabee. All of the sudden, Officer McDade had her hands full.
Meanwhile, back in the mining town of Calico in the 1880's a dude appears. He doesn't smell bad, he has all of his teeth, and he's dressed funny, all of which set him apart from the townsfolk. To fit in, he identifies himself as a chef who specializes in French cuisine. When he starts a job cooking at the Saloon, food automatically and exponentially improves. He goes by the name Ben Cartwright.
McDade finds bones in a new project development and the coroner runs tests on them-they are certainly Slader's remains but why is he only a skeleton after disappearing a week ago, and why do his bones and the remains of the guy hit by the motor home date back to the 1880's?
This is a good police investigation/western that brings back the real mining town and the true flavor of Calico California mixed in with some very whimsical elements. Goldberg marries the events of now and then with a wonderful sense of imagination and makes the reader believe things that can't possibly be true...or can they?

I have enjoyed every book that I have read by this author and the mystery and his witty dialog made this a fast-paced read. Former LAPD Detective Beth McDade lost her job due to a personal lapse in judgement and is now lucky to be a detective in Barstow, California? She is tough, relentless and often sarcastic. When a man ran screaming from the desert, he was run over by a motor home. The motor home driver was not at fault, but at the same time a man who was returning from Las Vegas is missing. As Beth investigates both cases, construction had just begun on property owned by the Cartwright family and an old grave is discovered. Beth and the local coroner are called to the scene and the skeleton provides some startling information which will leave them in disbelief. How can this be and what do they do now? When Beth is warned away from the investigation, she knows that she has stumbled onto something that someone wants hidden, and the chase and search is on! I received an advance review copy at no cost and without obligation for an honest review. (paytonpuppy)

Barstow, California is a rundown city in the Mojave desert. It is a place people tend to leave, not move to. But after a staggering fall from grace, ex-LAPD detective Beth McDade finds it the only place she can get another job as a police officer. She works hard, and buries herself at the bar when not at work. She thinks about redemption, but that doesn’t happen in a place like Barstow.

Beth is called to an old skeleton dug up at a construction site, where things don’t quite seem to be adding up. She is also investigating a traffic accident involving a vagrant, killed when he ran in front of a motor home driver during a lightning storm. The vagrant is completely unknown, and his body presents a wealth of questions for the medical examiner - much more than just from involvement in a road traffic accident.

The more Beth investigates, the more clues she uncovers, and the more conclusions she comes to which make her start to question her view of the world. Beth has to completely change her mindset, and find a way to bring others into her way of thinking, into a discovery that will change how the world works forever.

When I saw this book was out I was excited by a new police drama from Lee Goldberg. I was not so convinced by the western elements hinted at. I am not typically a western fan, nor so much a historical fiction fan. But I will tell you right now - take any preconceptions you have about any genres before you read this book and throw them out the door. In fact, take the blurb above, and any other blurbs you have read - and throw them out the door while you are at it. This book is an absolute mastercraft of writing, but at the same time is a mind bending, dazzling, evocative, intriguing, and gripping read. You are bounced from place to place in the best possible way. You are brought along on the journey of discovery the characters are making, with the plot unfolding for you as much as them, and your mind being blown along with theirs. The writing really brings the people in the story to life, and brings the places to life in vivid detail

I could not put this book down. I did not want to stop reading. When it ended I wanted to start it again. I wanted to experience the crazy, magical adventure all over again. You need to read this book to enjoy the journey it takes you on. Don’t look up what it is about, just open, read, and enjoy a beautifully crafted piece of work, that does what a good book should do - take you away on a wonderful adventure.

*I received this book from NetGalley for review, but all opinions are my own.

I was at a program with Lee and his brother Tod for their newest books when Lee mentioned his newest book. I immediately went to NetGalley for an ARC. If you are ever near a program with them, go!! They are funny and informative.
I went into this book with no prior knowledge and was blown away!
It was completely different from any of his other books, and I could not put it down.
The book starts on February 2, 2019 in Barstow, CA, a town I have driven through many times on my way to Las Vegas, and I had no idea there is a Calico Ghost town. Maybe I will stop there next trip.
A man has been run over by an RV at Peggy Sue's diner (another place I have always wanted to go) and he is a mystery man. He has lice, bad teeth and syphilis. His clothes and boots seem to be from another century.
Then, an LAPD detective with whom our hero Detective Beth McDade has a history, comes looking for a missing LA man named Owen Slader.
The suddenly we are in Calico in on Feb 4th 1882 where Owen.has driven through a rift in time. Yes, our mystery novel has become a time travel mystery novel.
I must say, Goldberg has done a fabulous job with the 1882 sections. His descriptions of the people, the food, the smells and the lives of silver miners is so interesting. Owen keeps thinking that it is nothing like the TV Westerns.when he is asked his name he blurts out Ben Cartwright, and the Bonanza theme starts running through my brain.
The book then is about how Ben survives in the past and how Beth tries to solve the mystery in the present.
Just an excellent book in every way, from the depiction of cops in a small town like Barstow, to living in a small desert town in 1882, Goldberg has written a very exciting book.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy for an honest review. READ THIS BOOK!

Beth is a cop working in a nowhere town. She has a past that forced her off the beaten trail. She becomes involved in two cases that seem to be connected but that seems so unbelievable.
I do love a good police mystery. This book has that plus the time travel element thrown into the mix, another favorite. I liked Beth, she was pretty tough and determined. I really liked this book

Calico is a parallel-narrative, time-slip historical thriller in which we meet Beth McDade, a homicide detective in Barstow, California in 2019. Called to the scene of an accident involving the fatal collision of a motor home with a vagrant, she finds things don’t quite add up. Apart from anything else, the filthy man’s clothing looks about a century old, which could mean he’s been living rough, off the grid. Other strange anomalies are apparent in the skeletal contents of a coffin found at a building site. Meanwhile a YouTube wannabe chef disappears without trace. Beth’s curiosity kicks in fast, her thoughts seconded by the coroner. Barely into her investigation, she is tracked by powerful forces and threatened to drop it or risk her career. But, of course, she can’t. Then: a lightning storm, an unexplained disappearance, explosions at two military bases, a highway bus accident, and the motorhome accident. Beth needs to find the connection.

Beth is a savvy, streetwise cop who’s made mistakes and paid for them, but whose sense of fair play is admirable. Basing his novel on the actual silver mining ghost town of Calico, now a California State Park, Goldberg paints an unapologetically unsanitary, malodorous 1880s Calico, where sewers and drainage are non-existent, and water and bathing almost so. The desert dust works its way into every nook and cranny, in both contemporary and historical settings, which are equally compelling and leave the reader breathless for more. A cleverly complex plot wreathed in Goldberg’s brilliant humour makes this a rocket-paced story; a minutely researched historical tale with a sci-fi twist which imparts a message to accept the lot we are given and make the best job of circumstances that we can. Goldberg’s protagonist certainly does. This novel, where wryly amusing moments abound, comes highly recommended.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was excited to read this book but I was a little disappointed it was not written in the genre that I expected.

"Calico" by Lee Goldberg is an intriguing blend of investigative thriller and time-travel adventure. The story unfolds through two main threads, with Sheriff Detective Beth McDade investigating a mysterious man killed by an RV and a series of perplexing events in the Mojave desert, while Owen Slader finds himself transported back in time and must navigate the challenges of living in the past.

The narrative keeps you engaged with its well-paced plot, weaving together the investigations and challenges faced by McDade and Slader. I found Slader to be a more compelling and developed character, with his struggle to adapt to a different time period and his interactions with the residents of the Calico mining camp adding depth to his story.

Goldberg's writing style draws you into the mystery, making it hard to put the book down. While there are some elements that might not be suitable for all readers, the novel provides an enjoyable reading experience with its blend of action, intrigue, and a touch of time-travel fantasy. Overall, "Calico" is a captivating and thought-provoking read that will keep you guessing until the very end.

Lee Goldberg has a solid grasp for writing strong women in difficult circumstances. Beth is a complete, full, rich, character with a past she's making steps to overcome. This is a mash-up of crime procedural and western plus a time-travelling element as well.. The story is an amusing, entertaining, fast-paced page-turner. Well done, Lee!,

Detective Beth McDade left the LAPD in disgrace and ended up in Barstow, CA. As one of two detectives covering a swath of the Mojave desert, Beth sees a wide variety of cases, but nothing has prepared her for the twisty, unbelievable story that begins with a lightning storm in the middle a February night. Beth is called to the scene of an accident where a vagrant ran out in front of an RV and was run over because the driver was distracted by the storm. While Beth is trying to identify the man and help track down a burglary crew, a former colleague from LA shows up with another case: a chef and social media influencer who disappeared the night of the storm while on his way back to LA from Las Vegas. I can't say much more about the plot without giving too much away, but I was hooked on this book from page 1. Well researched and imaginative with great characters. The plot alternates between two points of view and time points. If I told you the whole plot you might think it's crazy, but it really worked for me!

Does Lee Goldberg know how to tell a story, or what? This is quite the page turner. There is time travel back to 1882 with lots of reality checks on what it would be like to live then. Hint: it isn't like Gunsmoke. There is a spunky county deputy named Beth who will not stop until she gets to the bottom of the two bodies that both seem to have died in the wrong time. Also love Amanda, the intrepid coroner who is not afraid to push the envelope. This is definitely a genre bender and I found it impossible to put down.

Thank you to Severn House and NetGalley for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.