By Brian Dunlap

There are so many things I could say about Lost Hills by Lee Goldberg, yet I don’t know where to begin. I could talk about how I received this book unexpectedly in the mail, sent in a manila envelope, addressed to my site, Los Angeles Literature, from Amazon in early December. Published by Thomas & Mercer, Amazon’s own publisher. Because this mystery is set in Calabasas, Topanga, and the surrounding area. L.Á. suburbs.

I could disclose that Lee Goldberg is the brother of my friend and novelist Tod Goldberg, to dispel any appearance of conflict of interest, to assure the reader I’ll be fair and honest in my review, despite the relationship.

I could say Lost Hills reads as a good episode of a show like The Closer, with a tough female lead detective, Eve Ronin, and the plot and story about this triple murder moves at a steady pace to keep the action moving. It doesn’t lag—the appropriate pace for an hour episode.

I could discuss how Eve is portrayed as a tough, confident, but not over confident detective, who doesn’t put up with the resentment from her co-workers who think the only reason she was promoted to L.A. County Sheriff Department Detective was due to her leveraging her 15 minutes of viral fame from arresting an A-list celebrity. Or by how she handles the novel’s triple homicide case she’s put in charge of.

I could also discuss how Lost Hills became much more engaging and gripping, with the sense there is something at risk for Eve, starting at chapter 26 or 61.6% of the way through the novel. That it combines the best concrete details seen in the novel up to that point, with the first real action, where something that Eve wants—to solve the case and put away the suspect Lionel Coyle—can be denied based on the lack of hard evidence linking Coyle to the murders.

Yet, I feel obligated to discuss how this mystery, set in the Los Ángeles suburbs of Topanga, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, etc., reads as a draft, not a completed and fully realized L.Á. mystery. I do understand that Lost Hills is supposed to be the type of mystery that is a light, fun, entertaining, beach read, read for pure pleasure more than anything else. These kinds of mysteries come with different expectations from the loyal and rabid fans of the genre and are held to a different standard (plot-driven, action-oriented, pacing moves briskly to avoid the plot stalling, familiar and comfortable tropes to help keep the readers focused on the plot and action) than literary fiction. Yet, even accounting for all this, Lost Hills falls short of good writing.

First, I’d like to discuss the inclusion of race in Lost Hills, since it’s set in Southern California, a region famous for its diversity. Like too many L.Á. novels before it, this novel sorely lacks characters of color. Only two are mentioned as nonwhite (they’re black), and one is the most minor of characters, an LAPD officer who’s in only three paragraphs. He functions as a receptionist, as Eve enters the Topanga Community Police Station to talk to Frank Knobb, who can help with her case. He shows up 86.6% of the way through the book. The sentence noting his blackness reads: “The officer at the front desk was black and his uniform was crisply pressed, the creases so sharp that Eve thought they could be used to slice meat.”

The other character of color is LASD homicide detective Stan Garvey, who plays a significant supporting role. Like the previous character, he’s black, and his sentence noting his blackness is: “He was black and embraced the Tubbs nickname.” However, his partner Wally Biddle, also has a nickname: Crockett. Their nicknames go together and are a reference to Don Johnson’s and Philip Michael Thomas’ characters from the TV show Miami Vice. Inexcusably, the nickname of Tubbs stands in for the work a writer is supposed to do through character development, to make each and every character a unique, fully realized person, with agency, not just a name on the page. Instead Goldberg uses a blatant surface level stereotype—everyone in L.Á. wants to work in Hollywood—and finishes Garvey’s character development by writing: “He often talked about leaving the job to become a producer…”

Every other time Garvey is in a scene he is functionary, there primarily to move the plot and case forward as part of Ronin’s investigative team. The only other character development is the witty remarks and jokes he engages in that depict him as that cop stereotype of being sexist, so Goldberg can easily portray the ranks of the Sheriff’s Department as a boys club, with no nuance.

Plus, it’s inexcusable to set a mystery in L.Á. with such a lack of diversity and fully realized characters of color. With L.Á. County’s population being half people of color, no matter how white a world a person lives in, it’s impossible not to interact with people of color often. It’s apparent from reading Lost Hills that Goldberg understands this, but can’t conceive of such complex characters or their lives. There is not one Latinx Sheriff Department detective or employee in the entire novel, when no other ethnic community, other than white people, are more synonymous with L.Á.

Lost Hills is set in present day Los Ángeles, and regardless of what kind of mystery the novel is, including so few, underdeveloped characters of color, reduces the depth of the novel, not only in regards to characterization and racial inclusion/portrayal, but to its depiction of place: Southern California. This functions essentially like the butterfly effect and adds to the erasure of communities of color in L.Á., intentionally or not. The godfather of noir and L.Á. mysteries, Raymond Chandler, is famous for leaving people of color out of the region’s narrative. Critic and crime novelist Tylor Dilts noted, “Chandler never could,” give voice to the realities of people of color, essentially rendering large swaths of the population invisible.

Second, I’d like to discuss Lee Goldberg’s depiction of place, which I’ve touched on above. There are too many missed opportunities, stemming from Goldberg’s use of language, which would have enabled the setting to function as more than mere backdrop. I’ve read plenty of mysteries set in L.Á., from Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler, to Hiroshima Boy by Naomi Hirahara and Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker, to know how setting can work toward character development, a deeper understanding of the world around the characters that affects their decisions, etc. A good example comes from Silent Joe: “It was Monday morning. It had taken me an hour to get from my house in Orange to the TA yard in Irvine—a distance of about 15 miles.”

For too much of Lost Hills, setting doesn’t work for the plot, letting context deepen the depiction of place, like the example from Silent Joe. Too often it amounts to listing place names; takes the reader out of the plot/story to explain some part of the setting/place to the reader, not trusting they can understand it otherwise; and by heavily stereotyping L.Á. in relation to Hollywood. A good example of listing place names in place of a deeper portrayal of place occurs in chapter 9, when Ronin is biking home after her boss, Captain Moffett ordered her to go home because she already looked exhausted from working on the triple homicide case.

            When Eve reached Las Virgenes, she turned left and cycled across the
101 freeway overpass to the residential area on the other side. There were
undeveloped hills to her left and three townhouse condominium complexes
to her right. She lived in a two story unit across the street. Her windows
faced the charred and blackened oaks that burned a year ago…

The Calabasas area is one of the most beautiful in Southern California, combining suburban living and living in nature, the reason why people choose to live there. Using general language like “undeveloped hills” and the street name “Los Virgenes” does not capture that on the page which would help capture the fragile beauty of where Ronin lives, which comes into play later in the novel.

Further, Goldberg completely stereotypes Ronin’s mother by portraying her as obsessed with Hollywood stardom; the main local reporter, Kate Darrow, as having received plastic surgery; and the ex-boyfriend of the mother killed in the triple homicide who works as a grip on movie sets, using one of the oldest and famous stereotypes by which to portray L.Á. on a completely surface level. This portrayal ignores the rest of the complex and diverse region, the seemingly infinite communities and their issues, especially the ones Lost Hills is set amongst: mostly white wealthy Americans and some celebrities. It’s a complete oddity, the novel seems to say, if one lives in L.Á. and does not attempt or want to work in Hollywood.

“The studios and networks watch the news, you know…” Ronin’s mother says of seeing her interviewed on the news about her case. “…but what you are doing now, with this triple murder case…you could be in a series or a movie,” about this case her mother insists, if Ronin plays her cards right. Ronin’s desire, however, is to work at the L.Á. County Sheriff’s Department. Period.

All writing, genre or literary, needs to dig beneath the surface of the ideas, settings and characters a writer creates, to create depth to the narrative. That’s what makes great writing. Keeps the reader interested, creates characters they’re invested in because they get to know them on a personal level. Setting that brings these characters worlds to vibrant life. Lady in the Lake does it. Silent Joe does it. Hiroshima Boy does it. I was invested. I can’t say the same for Lee Goldberg’s Lost Hills.

I can say Lost Hills does improve 61.6% through the novel, but that’s way too long to wait to truly feel something is at stake for Detective Eve Ronin, to truly understand the place she lives in. However, it’s chapter 27 where the best portrayal of place occurs. The only place that expanded my understanding of Calabasas at all. “Calabasas was divided by steep hills that were designated as permanent open space. There were no roads that cut straight across them. As a result, to get to the other side of the city, it was necessary to take one of three routes…” I wish there was more of this type of depth to the novel, to allow me to sink in to the particulars of Ronin’s world.

There is much more I could say about how Lost Hills by Lee Goldberg falls short of a completed novel, but I’ll stop here. The best part of the novel is the creation of a tough female lead in LASD Detective Eve Ronin, who is confident, doesn’t take shit from anyone, but is not over-confident because she knows what she doesn’t know. I wish Goldberg had spent more time on the novel, to develop the characters (including more characters of color as well), the plot, the setting, etc. so the book doesn’t read as a draft. I hope to see Eve Ronin in a more complete novel in the future.