Hooked from the first few pages! Wow! Goldberg is one of my favorite authors, but I never realized he’d started this series. Time to go back and read the first one. Highly recommended!

A man is found dead in his burning home. He has been shot in the head. Is this murder, suicide or…related to domestic terrorism? Partners Walter Sharpe and Andrew Walker have only started their investigation when a house in a new, exclusive hilltop development goes up in flames. And this is just in the early chapters of Ashes Never Die, the second in the Sharpe and Walter series. This time they join forces with Eve Ronin and Duncan Pavone, familiar characters from their own series. Soon Walker and Ronin are racing across rural Los Angeles searching for a woman who does not want to be found, a possible arsonist and a Star Wars fanatic who may be a threat to the city. Of course, with every Lee Goldberg mystery, you know that the good guys will win. It’s the chase the counts and this complicated chase will leave you guessing until the final pages.

It’s no surprise that the talented, award winning author Lee Goldberg has won acclaim as a tv screenwriter. Ashes Never Lie is so visual that you can see the tangerine orchards and smell the smoldering fires. You learn more about these familiar characters in each book. You also learn quite a bit about arson. Obviously, Goldberg has done his homework. I never understand the variety of items that can be ordered from Amazon. Not being a Star Wars fan, I also learned quite a bit about Mandalorian culture. I would read anything written by Lee Goldberg and I can’t imagine giving it less than 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer and Lee Goldberg for this ARC.

Having been a fan of Lee Goldberg's Eve Ronin series, I couldn't help but be curious about his other series featuring their LASD arson investigator colleagues Walter Sharpe and Andrew Walker.

I wasn't disappointed, in fact I am greedy for more! This book was a wild ride with several cases going on and a similar dynamic - veteran teamed up with a newer colleague, though, in this instance Walker spent a decade as a US Marshall, having traded that job in for something less of a threat on his life. Best of all, Eve and her veteran partner Duncan Pavone are along for the ride.

The writing is tight, there's tonnes of action that kept me turning the page and as always, this main star of Lee Goldberg's books are Los Angeles. I loved the touches of history thrown in for good measure. I loved the supporting characters, such as Carly, Walker's wife, who ended up doing a bit of undercover work. I also appreciated the way I learnt about fires and arson as a naturallistic seamless conversation instead of an information dump.

I do have one quibble, and this is something I've been noticing with the Ronin series - the repetitive descriptions of body type, especially Duncan's. He's always referred to as being fat and always hungry as a personality trait. A DA is described as a smokeshow and trying to downplay her looks with make up. In the survelliance van Walker has static sitting near her which is described as 'static beauty' in relation to her. All of these sorts of descriptors took me out of the story and, in my opinion, cringy and redundant.

Overall this was another solid crime novels featuring new characters for me that I look forward to seeing how they develop. I thoroughly recommend this one for the TBR pile.

Thanks to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for the ARC.

When Lee Goldberg created his new great LA Sheriff’s department team of arson investigators Walter Sharpe and Andrew Walker, I had no idea he would have them meet his other great team of LASD detectives, Eve Ronin and Duncan Pavone. What a brilliant collaboration! We met veteran Sharpe and his newish partner Walker (a former US Marshal, 20 years younger than Sharpe) in “Malibu Burning” and the Stetson-wearing Walker has now experienced a year under the older man’s tutelage.

Eve Ronin (who has now starred in 5 books, most recently “Dream Town”) and Duncan Pavone are sort of similar — Pavone postponed retirement to stay partnered with the young, but very celebrated Ronin (she’s the inspiration for a TV show named “Ronin”). Her encounter with Sharpe/Walker is her first fire death investigation, and typical of Eve, she’s eager to learn more.

As is usual in Goldberg’s depictions of rural Los Angeles County, there are multi-jurisdictional considerations (bordering counties, cities, federal lands, Indigenous sacred grounds, environmental protection areas), but it’s a suspicious fire death in LA County that brings the two teams together. Was the death of an employee of an ultra-secretive bio-engineering company a suicide or a murder?

What’s incredibly great and entertaining: the “kids” (Walker and Eve) get to team up (including scenes where Eve poses as Walker’s wife’s “wife” and the two of them are in San Diego at a comic-con dressed as the Mandalorian and Wonder Woman).

But there are serious investigations of arson, insurance fraud, murders, and fugitive chases, plus discussions of the aches and pains of their jobs (Walker has a bum knee and irritated back; Eve always tends to end up in the ER).

The author has definitely done extensive research on arson investigation, offering up knowledge like there are “no Velcro clasps anywhere on their uniforms or on the bags they carried, because the static electricity that the fasteners could spark might ignite flammable gasses or explosives.” I was entertained by the terrific banter between all four characters that I didn’t want the book to end! 5 stars! Bring on another chapter of both LASD teams soon!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO After having three sets of green eyes in “Malibu Burning,” there are none in this book.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO There is the endangered snoot-whistle flower (home of the globby twizzle gnat) to consider…. Oh, you don’t put roses in window flower boxes. But kudos again to Mr. Goldberg for his extensive and accurate portrayal of the California desertscape.

Thank you to Thomas & Mercer/Amazon Publishing and NetGalley for a free advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!