King City [Kindle Edition]

Lee Goldberg (Author)

Book Description

Major Crimes Unit detective Tom Wade secretly worked with the Feds to nail seven of his fellow cops for corruption…turning him into a pariah in the police department. So he’s exiled to patrol a beat in King City’s deadliest neighborhood… with no back-up, no resources, and no hope of survival.

Now Wade fights to tame the lawless, poverty-stricken wasteland…while investigating a string of brutal murders of young women. It’s a case that takes him from the squalor of the inner-city to the manicured enclaves of the privileged, revealing the sordid and deadly ways the two worlds are intertwined…making his enemies even more determined to crush him.

But for Tom Wade, backing down is never an option...even if it will cost him his life. It’s one reason why bestselling author Janet Evanovich calls Wade “an unforgettable and deeply compelling character in the most original crime novel to come along in years."

Editorial Reviews

Review

Audio Edition Review: “Goldberg begins his tale on a moment of high tension – with Wade facing down one of the crooked cops – and lets up on the action only to add dimension detail to the characters and the town he has created. Patrick Lawlor, one of Brilliance Audio’s more active readers, understands the need for maintaining a fast, almost breathless pace, but he also knows when to slow things down enough for listeners to share Wade’s danger or savor his clever victories.” -Mystery Scene magazine

Review

"Lee Goldberg's King City brings the sensibility of a western to the contemporary crime novel and the result is exhilarating, compelling, and a thrill to read. Tom Wade is an iconic hero with a strong, personal code trying bring order to a lawless frontier...which just happens to be smack in the middle of a dying, industrial American city. He's an unforgettable and deeply compelling character in the most original crime novel to come along in years," -Janet Evanovich, international bestselling author

“King City is a book that only Lee Goldberg could have written. He’s got the high-velocity prose of a best-seller, coupled with the highly visual elements that make his television writing so compelling. Factor in the terrific characters and some very cogent takes on human nature, and you’ve got a rollicking thriller. King City is a pleasure from start to finish." T. Jefferson Parker, New York Times bestselling author of The Jaguar and The Border Lords

"King City is Walking Tall, Die Hard, and Dirty Harry all rolled into one. Hard-driving action and all the satisfaction of a well-told story about a righteous man of courage facing seemingly insurmountable odds. You'll love it."-Jan Burke, bestselling author of Disturbance and Liar

"I could tell you that Lee Goldberg's King City is one of the best reads of the year or that Lee is one of my favorite writers for so many reasons--plotting, character, or his incredible sense of humor--but that might ruin the surprise of reading King City for yourself. Suffice to say that Goldberg is one infinitely readable master of crime fiction, and King City is Lee at his best." -Craig Johnson, New York Times bestselling author of The Cold Dish and Hell is Empty

"King City like a 1969 Detroit muscle car. It's powerful, nasty, loud, and a heck of a lot of fun. Lee Goldberg is at his atmospheric best here, creating a world so authentic the sights, sounds and smells seem to explode from the pages. Detective Tom Wade is a fast, funny three-dimensional protagonist and following him through the cesspool of King City and its outrageous inhabitants is endlessly entertaining." Paul Guyot, writer/supervising producer of the TV series "Leverage"

"King City effortlessly blends the archetypal gunslinger of the Old West, riding into the lawless town to clean up the bad guys, with a modern tale of police corruption, urban decay and neglect....It’s a fast-paced exploration of the decline of the blue-collar industrial heartland of America, and the cop who will not stand by and let that happen on his watch. Fans of the late Robert B Parker will delight in King City, which has the same great dialogue and nicely judged wry humour....A sit-down, straight-through read. Superb." -Zoe Sharp, author of Hard Knocks

"With Lee Goldberg's King City you get suspense, romance, humor and shoot-em-up outlaw justice. Picture a modern day High Noon with an incorruptible cop, Tom Wade, putting it all on the line in a town without pity." Joseph Wambaugh, bestselling author of The Blue Knight, The New Centurions, The Onion Field and Harbor Nocturne

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 486 KB
• Print Length: 247 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1612183174
• Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (May 15, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B006YYOJ1W
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #33,404 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 76 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Ignore the Vine shills this is a darned good read July 11, 2012

By The doctor

Format:Kindle Edition

I first noticed what I call the Vine effect some time ago as I noticed that a product I was researching had nothing but five star reviews all from reviewers in the Vine program. My interest was piqued as I noticed more and more that favorable reviews of books and other products at which I was looking had a preponderance of higher-rated reviews from members of the Vine program than other regular purchasers.

So here is a book By Lee Goldberg which exhibits some of the same tendency. Approximately 50% of the 5 star and 75% of the 4 star reviews are from Viners. Then you have the review bot folk as I like to think of them that appear to read dozens of books a week and have time to write reviews as well. I actually bought this book because I wanted a distracting read and one that was going to be fast-paced with witty dialogue and snappy characters. I was not disappointed. THe one downside, mentioned by others, is that the work does read a bit at times like directions for stage or screen but this disappears after the stage was set for King and the city.

The reason I gave it 4 stars is due to this scene-setting which appeared a little contrived. Are some of the scenes plausible? Well not really but I do not expect all my fiction to be an exact replica of what goes on in the real world so the idea of a lone police officer facing down a gang of thugs in the projects does not bother me that much especially if it goes towards establishing the character and approach of the main proponent as it does in the book. However some of the situations in the book have been borrowed from real-life.... The moving of street people and mentally-ill people has been documented before and the scenarios are used to good effect in highlighting the differences between the good and bad parts of the city and setting the stage for the morality to be discussed.

I am a fan of Mr Goldberg and have discovered and avoided authors based on his own reviews. I have to say I do enjoy Mr Goldberg's work and I like the more realistic approach towards sex and language employed. I am not bothered by "bad" language or graphic sex in a novel - not that there is much of this in the book anyway. I enjoy the quirky nature of his characters and he makes them real to me in a way that many authors cannot. As for the humor there is plenty of it which adds to the readability of the book.

Definitely recommended Read more ›

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars There's a new sheriff in town... May 1, 2012

By QueenKatieMae VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Detective Tom Wade is ostracized by the King City Police Department after helping the Justice Department bust the entire MCU for corruption. Now, his old partner won't take his calls, his wife filed for divorce and the police chief reassigns Wade as a uniformed officer working a substation in the most crime-ridden section of town, Darwin Gardens. Aptly named for it's survival of the fittest mentality. Not a demotion, per se, a "lateral move"; one that the chief knows will either break Wade or kill him.

But the chief underestimates the man who lives by the badge, who lives to serve and protect the people, even if they do remodel his Mustang with tire irons the first day.

Working out of a run-down station that used to be a porn shop, Wade valiantly attempts community policing in an area inhabited by drunks, addicts, hookers, gangsters, murderers, rotting buildings and guys who urinate on Mrs. Copeland's garden. His only co-workers are two rookies: Billy, who barely graduated from the academy and Charlotte, a black woman blatently relegated to this assignment because of her gender. Wade realizes even three experienced officers can't man the Gardens alone, but he is determined.

The author, Lee Goldberg, has borrowed from the stories where the lone, unwanted sheriff rides into a lawless town to dispense some much needed justice, and dropped it in a contemporary setting. And he has done it with a strong, likeable, central character and a great sense of humor. All the elements are there, but the town saloon is a pancake house, the owner smokes while wearing his oxygen tank, the deputy used to work at Best Buy, the bad guy wears $2500 silk track suits and his horse, well it was the Mustang, but that's in the shop now.... There is even a stand-off in front of the saloon, I mean pancake house, where the sheriff faces down five Indians with guns and crow bars without his Kevlar vest. It's a great scene.

It's an absolutely fabulous book. It's characters are compelling, the dialogue clever and sharp, the writing fast and furious and infused with a wonderful sense of humor. The story may be gritty and it would be so depressing if it weren't for Goldberg's way of taking an outrageous situation and slyly making the reader laugh. He created the wonderful Tom Wade, a straight-shooting modern day cowboy hero with a heart of gold and a badge that shines even in the darkest moments. And, he makes me want to read more about Wade's future adventures in Darwin Gardens, the town everyone forgot.

Highly recommended. It was a lot of fun to read. Read more ›

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars exhilarating taut police procedural May 15, 2012

By Harriet Klausner #1 HALL OF FAME

Format:Paperback

The FBI arrested the entire King City Major Crimes Unit on corruption charges. The only exception is thirty-five years old Detective Tom Wade who worked undercover with the Justice Department for two years. Seven cops are convicted while Tom testified against them and has been kept on administrative leave by Police Chief Reardon.

Everyone associated with KCPD including family members loathe Tom for destroying the lives of his peers and their dependents. Reardon assigns him to work the deadliest and most impoverished slum in the city Darwin Gardens where survival of the fittest is tested every moment. Tom says nothing in spite of knowing he has been given a death sentence. However, being an honest cop is who he is and with little help, Tom and his team of two unwanted rookies investigate a serial killer viciously murdering young women.

Paying homage to Frank Serpico, this is an exhilarating taut police procedural as one honest cop brings down a corrupt department but pays the price in his personal life and on the job where he wears the "Scarlet Letter" of traitor. Fast-paced from the moment Tom enters a hostage situation involving one of the cops he turned in and never slows down as he works a deadly beat with two tyros; one barely graduated the academy and the other a black female who the brass wants to force out as racially and sexually undesirable. Diogenes would have found his honest man in Tom, but even the Greek mythical traveler would wonder whether honesty is the best policy.

Harriet Klausner

More About the Author

Lee Goldberg is an ex-Navy SEAL, freelance Sexual Surrogate and a professional Pierce Brosnan impersonator.

Okay, that's not true. But he wants this biography to be really exciting, so pay attention. If things bog down, I've been instructed to add a car chase or some explicit sex.

Here's the real story. Lee Goldberg writes books and television shows.

His mother wanted him to be a doctor, and his grandfather wanted him to go into the family furniture business. Instead, he put himself through UCLA as a freelance journalist, writing for such publications as American Film, Starlog, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times Syndicate, The Washington Post and The San Francisco Chronicle (He also wrote erotic letters to the editor for Playgirl at $25-a-letter, but he doesn't tell people about that, he just likes to boast about those "tiffany" credits).

He published his first book ".357 Vigilante" (as "Ian Ludlow," so he'd be on the shelf next to Robert Ludlum) while he was still a UCLA student. The West Coast Review of Books called his debut "as stunning as the report of a .357 Magnum, a dynamic premiere effort," singling the book out as "The Best New Paperback Series" of the year. Naturally, the publisher promptly went bankrupt and he never saw a dime in royalties. (But the books are available on the Kindle as "The Jury Series")

Welcome to publishing, Lee.

His subsequent books include the non-fiction books "Successful Television Writing" and "Unsold Television Pilots" ("The Best Bathroom Reading Ever!" San Francisco Chronicle) as well as the novels "My Gun Has Bullets" ("It will make you cackle like a sitcom laugh track," Entertainment Weekly), "Dead Space" ("Outrageously entertaining," Kirkus Reviews), "Watch Me Die" ("as dark and twisted as anything Hammet or Chandler ever dreamed up," Kirkus Reviews).

"Take me now," she moaned, "you hot writer stud."

She tore off her clothes and tackled him onto the floor, unable to control her raging lust. Nothing excited her more than being around a writer with a big list of books.

Got your attention again? Good. I don't know about you, but I was starting to nod off. Where was I? Oh yes...

Goldberg broke into television with a freelance script sale to "Spenser: For Hire." Since then, his TV writing & producing credits have covered a wide variety of genres, including sci-fi (SeaQuest), cop shows (Hunter, The Glades), martial arts (Martial Law), whodunits (Diagnosis Murder, Nero Wolfe), the occult (She-Wolf of London), kid's shows (R.L. Stine's The Nightmare Room), T&A (Baywatch), comedy (Monk) and utter crap (The Highwayman). His TV work has earned him two Edgar Award nominations from the Mystery Writers of America.

His two careers, novelist and TV writer, merged when he began writing the "Diagnosis Murder" series of original novels, based on the hit CBS TV mystery that he also wrote and produced, and later wrote the 15 bestselling novels based on "Monk," another show that he worked on. He's also the co-creator of Amazon's "The Dead Man" series of monthly horror novellas and the author of the crime thriller "King City." Most recently, he teamed up with Janet Evanovich to write the New York Times bestselling books "The Heist" and "Pros & Cons."

But perhaps he's best known for his pioneering work mapping the human genome and negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Goldberg lives in Los Angeles with his wife and his daughter and still sleeps in "Man From UNCLE" pajamas.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#13 Overall (See top 100 authors)

#2 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery

#5 in Books > Romance

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#7 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance

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#7 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance

#8 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers