Suspenseful, easy read that fits the bill when you want to grab a book that will hold your attention but won't bug you if you need to walk away and get chores completed. I enjoyed it but forgot it after reading it to be honest.

Gated Prey is the third book in Goldberg's exciting Eve Ronin police procedural series following in the wake of Lost Hills and Bone Canyon. Set in Calabasas and Lost Hills, upscale enclaves west of the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles Sheriff's Deputy Eve Ronin is based at the Lost Hills Station. Her meteoric rise to Detective, leapfrogging other deputies who have put in their time, has not earned her too many friends in her station. She's definitely not part of the old boy's network. It hadn't helped matters either that everything she touches becomes a media frenzy. Now a show is being written based on her famed exploits and that's making lots of friends in the Department too.

Once again, she's partnered with one of her few friends, the portly Detective Donuts Duncan who is always just a few months from retirement and again skirting the line between fantasy and reality, they are operating undercover as a wealthy old man and his young trophy wife. The idea is to sting home invasion robbers they are turning the gated neighborhoods of Calabasas Park into their private shopping mall.

Rather than be an atmospheric crime story, this series is filled with pounding action, shootouts, chases, and puzzling crimes. Action-packed might be the word used here.

The third in the latest series from Lee Goldberg about a homicide detective in the LA Sheriff's Department. I have not read all of his books but I have read a large selection of them. For my money this series is his best. The sense of place is amazing and the characters consistently interesting, even the ones I don't like.

I loved it! This is a first for me by this author and I jumped in mid series without any problem. The crime solving process was logically progressive and interesting. I'm going to check out his other books now!

<i>Gated Prey</i> is an interesting and complex detective novel. The protagonist, Eve Ronin, is a female detective who is not very popular in the police force because she is so bent on solving crimes often at the expense of developing allies within the department. <i>Gated community</i> is the third book in the Eve Ronin Series written by the prolific Lee Goldberg.

Two detectives are staking out a house because there of been a series of recent break-ins in the neighbourhood. Three suspects come to the door. Things go wrong and the police end up shooting all three suspects. Upon further investigation they discover these house invaders don't have any criminal background and have never been involved in break-ins. When the detectives do a survey of the neighbourhood they come across suspicious activity in another house. The lady who lives there has just lost her baby who was still-born, but in the process of following up they discover that she's never been pregnant. Only through the persistence of Eve Ronin do the police start to unravel the mysteries of the gated community break-ins and the still-born baby.

The character development in the novel is entertaining. Eve Ronin is quite persistent, very blunt and a real loner. Her only friend is her partner who tries to help Eve. He is about to retire and he attempts to give Eve advice on how to get along with people but it is difficult.

The crimes are complex and are solved because of the persistence of one detective. This makes the whole story quite interesting. The fact that there are crimes within crimes is a unique and I believe it makes the overall novel more compelling for the reader.

This is a novel that will be of interest to those who like complex a crime detective novels. I give it a 5 on 5. I would like to thank NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for providing me with a digital copy of this novel. I provide this review voluntarily.

I'm a big fan of Lee Goldberg, and especially of the Eve Ronin series. Gated Prey was my least favorite in the series, but it nevertheless provided lots of entertainment and a few moments that made the book hard to put down.

I felt that some of the events were extremely exaggerated and convoluted, even for a fiction novel. The tie-in at the end had me partially rolling my eyes and I was a bit disappointed in the ending. I do have hope though that there will be another in the series.

I really love too that the author adds little nuggets of LA life - he mentions real geographic locations which give a great visual. He's also fond of placing shout-outs for restaurants I'm assuming he frequents (now on my list to visit!)

Overall, I liked this book quite a bit despite its Eve Ronin-like flaws.

I was very happy to see Lee bring this back closer to Lost Hills. There is much more of a focus on the events and less on the will she/won't she of the tv series.

Gated Prey is a very solid procedural and while I had a strong idea early on of how the plot was going to unfold, it didn't disappoint and was properly paced with the right amount of emotional and physical turmoil.

Fans will surely enjoy this one.

I really enjoyed this procedural with action. The crime and its conclusion was unusual and I had no idea of the who/what. I really enjoy Duncan and don't want him to retire. One of the best passages is when they are undercove:)
Thank you netgalley and the publisher for this arc

I LOVE this series - it's the best. Eve is my favorite LA detective series. I did read the 1st 2 before this which I gave both 5 stars! I love that Eve is an independent and strong lead but not whiny or depressed about it and really cares about the cases she's given and wants to do what's right. I read this book in one night - it was so good, I couldn't even go to sleep until I finished it. I'm already looking forward to book #4 in this series.

An enjoyable read with a lot of suspense that held my interest to the end. Realistic characters with well written dialogue had the story flow smoothly to a great ending. I highly recommend as a must read.

I'm a recent (and huge) fan of Lee Goldberg's Eve Ronin series. These books are a fast, fun, thrill-ride and I could think of nothing better to accompany me on a summer trip to the beach.

Eve Ronin is something else. She's not afraid to make enemies if it means doing the right thing, which we all know seems unusual for a police officer in recent times. And boy had Eve made some enemies - in her own department. So when the perfectly set-up home invasion sting goes wrong, Eve can't help but wonder if someone on the force didn't mind if a couple cops ended up dead. This is a fun and fast-paced story about the crimes that can happen behind the gates of the wealthy communities that are supposed to be the safest. I can't wait to see what Eve gets into next.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Right from the beginning of the book until the end you are trying to figure out who did what and what will happen to Eve. We start off with Eve being involved with a sting operation trying to catch the robbers of home invasions in some of the gated communities in LA and then we go to an action packed shoot out and then a call about a home birth that the infant was stillborn. Eve is working on these cases and having to deal with LA County Sheriff department corrupt police officers that can't wait until something bad happens to Eve. Pick up this book and you won't want to put it down.

This book is probably best enjoyed by people who like lots of action, lots of blood and shooting, written in a style that is well suited to turning into an action thriller for television or movies. Eve Ronin comes across as the character she is so adamantly opposed to in the novel. I could never connect with her or her partner, written to clearly be almost a direct opposite of Eve.

The pacing seemed compressed, much as it would be for episodic television as well. The leaps Eve makes, along with the physical activity attributed to her character, from a wild chase of a subject, including the destruction of a luxury vehicle to her destruction of a wall inside a house seemed written for film. There is appeal for people who enjoy multiple 'cop shows" as it seems to be a mirrored image of shows that are either currently on television or have been in the past.

I love this series—the plots are interesting, Eve’s a winning character, and the dialogue is occasionally “laugh out loud” funny. Gated Prey, like its predecessors, was compulsively readable; I look forward to Eve’s character development in future books. My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Gated Prey, book #3 of the Eve Ronin series, has the youngest homicide detective in the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department pursuing a group of thieves robbing the gated enclaves of Calabasas, a hillside community in the San Fernando Valley made famous, or infamous, by the Kardashian clan. Eve is at her best thinking outside the structured law enforcement box and irritating her superiors while doing so. Up against a male-dominated work world, Eve works the crime using brainpower and a dogged determination to be successful in tracking down the perpetrators. Cannot wait for book #4. I just reviewed Gated Prey by Lee Goldberg. #GatedPrey #NetGalley [NetGalley URL]

Excellent book with a great plot and a well written story with a wonderful pace. The characters are very believable, and I'm looking forward to the next book in this series.

This is the third book in a new series, yet somehow only a few months have passed by in Eve's world. And... in those couple of months, every one of her cases has turned into something, well....something. She has been injured and almost killed twice and is just now trying to get back into the normal swing of things at work. At the beginning of this book, Eve is still living out of a hotel room as her home is still in the renovation stages and unlivable. Or, maybe she just isn't quite ready to live there again yet.

This book had a really nice pace and while there were a couple of cases occurring in the LASD at the same time, the flow seemed easy and it made things a piece of cake to follow along with.

Without going into spoilers, let me just say that I enjoyed this book. As usual, Eve's biggest challenge is that she STILL in not able to do her job in a way that doesn't alienate and piss off her co-workers, her bosses and well, most everyone else. For some reason, every case that she has touched has turned out to be "more". More than the initial cases appeared and is that because Eve is such a good detective, or just because she is tenacious and has something to prove? Not sure....maybe a little bit of both.

Also, everything she touches seems to create a media frenzy which just seems to solidify the criticism that her colleagues have towards her. Unfortunately, that is the one thing that she keeps trying to avoid.

This book strengthens the relationship between Eve and her partner Duncan Pavone - Donuts. I like the fact that he has her back at a time when he is one of a very short list of cops that do. He is also great in the mentor role and the fact that he is about to retire lets him give Eve a lot more leeway than he would normally.

Another good book in this series and I will gladly read the next book when it comes out.

Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The reviews above are mine and mine alone.

Violent crimes and desperate criminals and homicide detectives, oh my! Lee Goldberg delivers an intriguing, fast-paced, satisfying novel in Gated Prey, the third installment in the Eve Ronin series.

Eve Ronin, and her lovable Ding Dong consuming partner/sensei Duncan Pavone, are leading a sting operation to catch the culprits of a string of violent robberies in high income neighborhoods. While their efforts are successful, the unexpected deadly outcome leaves a lot to be desired and is impossible for someone as doggedly relentless as Eve to call the case closed and let it go. As the investigation ensues and Ronin/Pavone catch another brutal case, Eve once again ignores the advice from her veteran partner and goes full bore in the close-minded pursuit of justice ahead of her own wellbeing, putting herself in the crosshairs of those she’s pursuing as well as those in the Sheriff’s department who want nothing more than to see her fail…or worse.

Gated Prey focuses on developing Eve as a homicide investigator with incredible determination and natural instincts. Which is a refreshing change of pace after the prior novel concentrated, too much in my opinion, on her family pushing her to explore Hollywood options to tell her story and cash in on her fame. While this book does continue to move the ball forward on the Hollywood angle, it’s done so as a smartly crafted and small sub-plot that fits nicely within the main story. This allows for a return for what made the first book in the series so enjoyable – following a strong, but inexperienced and flawed female protagonist kick ass and stop at nothing to get justice. Eve’s still a stubborn, hard-headed, single-minded pain in the ass whose methods pisses off just about everyone she encounters, but there’s no denying that she cares about the victims and gets results. And maybe there’s a tiny glimmer of hope for her to find balance in her life that will allow her to maintain her effectiveness and keep her from burning out.

This is a series to keep an eye on if you’re a fan of police procedurals, formidable female characters, and stories with great pacing. You can jump in on any book, though reading it from the beginning will add depth and understanding. There are a lot of directions Lee Goldberg can go with the characters and storylines after the events of Gated Prey, so I suspect we’ll enjoy following Eve’s career for a long time to come.

Gated Prey is the third book in the Eve Ronin series. I enjoyed the first two books in the series (Lost Hills #1, Bone Canyon #2), they were the kind of lite-weight, easy reading mystery that makes for a good traveling or bedtime book: Written with a pace and style that allows one to pick them up and get right back into the story after sitting them aside for awhile. Not too hard-boiled not too cozy-soft, just good, middle-of-the-road mysteries. Gated Prey changes that style somewhat and, as a result, suffers for it.

The story of Eve Ronin is that she was a young cop who managed to leverage a high profile viral video into a position as a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. She's young, impulsive, ambitious, good at what she does and a woman... which adds up to Eve not being especially appreciated by the boys club types of the Sheriff's Department. The set-up does a great job of being both familiar and original. Eve Ronin is a fun character, the glue that holds it all together and makes the series more than just a generic police procedural.

Author Lee Goldberg does an admirable thing with Gated Prey, he stretches out of the tried and true format of the previous two books with something a little different, a little edgier. Without giving anything away the subject matter is darker, of a more realistic nature than the previous two, and that creates an uneven tone within the narrative. Eve, usually a sympathetic and relatable character, comes off as petulant and self-centered when the focus is on her and when it isn't the story tends to fizzle rather than sizzle.

It's not necessary to have read the previous two books but I honestly can't imagine anyone jumping in with this one and getting "hooked" on the series. Do yourself a favor and read them, then you can read this one while waiting for the next one and hoping it gets back on track.

*There is some graphic crime scene details, and a smattering of adult language. I would give it a PG-13 rating.

***I received a free digital copy of this title from NetGalley.

The third book in the Eve Ronin series is as exciting and great to read as the first two books. The author is a seasoned novelist and writer and consultant for television series and broadcasting around the world. He is also an excellent researcher which makes his characters and plots come alive .
Set in LA in the gated communities of the rich and sometimes famous, Eve and her soon to retire partner, Duncan, are undercover in a 24-7 sting operation to catch a group of home invasion robbers. They are soon approached by the robbers in an altercation that leaves two of the robbers dead at the scene and the third killed at a local supermarket after a car chase. With all three robbers dead the case is considered solve, but not for Eve who still has lots of unanswered questions and loose ends she can't let go of. In the midst of following the few leads they have they are called out on a stillborn child case at a home in the same gated community. (Police as well as coroners are called in these cases to make certain that no foul play is involved.) Between the two cases Eve is stretched thin but determined to solve both . She pursues them with her usual sleepless, tenaciousness to the ends of her and many of her colleagues rope. She is a force to reckon with.
This is a fast , thrilling read. I look forward to more books in this series (and anything else written by this author!!!