The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Gated Prey (Eve Ronin, 3) by Lee Goldberg

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

Gated Prey (Eve Ronin, 3) by Lee Goldberg A simple sting operation takes a violent and unexpected turn for Detective Eve Ronin in a gripping thriller by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Goldberg. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s detective Eve Ronin and her soon-to-retire partner, Duncan Pavone, are running a 24-7 sting in a guard-gated enclave of palatial homes in Calabasas. Their luxury McMansion is a honey trap, set to lure in the violent home invaders terrorizing the community. The trap works, leaving three intruders dead, a body count that nearly includes Eve and Duncan. Eve’s bosses are eager to declare the case closed, but there are too many unanswered questions for her to let go. Was the trap actually for her, bloody payback for Eve’s very public takedown of a clique of corrupt deputies? Or is there an even deadlier secret lurking behind those opulent gates? Eve’s refusal to back down and her relentless quest for the truth make her both the hunter…and the prey.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss hi folks this is voss here from the chris voss show.com the chris voss show.com hey we're coming here with another great podcast we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in thanks for being here we had an amazing guest on the show.

It's the second time he's a returning guest. If he keeps this up, especially with the way he writes books, he'll probably be getting like a robe at number five or something like that. Saturday Night Live does. He is the author of over 40 books, and his newest book is called Gated Prey. This is going to be coming out on October 26, 26 2021 lee goldberg is on the show with us today this is a book three of four of the eve ronan series for those of you who are big fans of his and keeping track of all of his amazing work and all that good stuff he is a two-time edgar award

and two-time shamus award nominee and the number number one New York Times bestselling author of more than 40 novels, including Lost Hills, True Fiction, 15 Monk Mysteries, we all know that show, and five internationally bestselling Fox and O'Hare books co-written with Janet. He has also written and or produced many TV shows, including Diagnosis, Murder, Sequest, and Monk, and is the co-creator of the hit Hallmark movie series, Mystery 101. He is also the co-founder of the publishing company, Brash Books. You can find out more information about him, of course, at LeeGoldberg.com. Welcome to the show, Lee. How are you? Great great to be here i'm only here because you promised me a chris voss hat and a chris voss jockstrap i didn't get either one and i'm going to leave

the broadcast right now i'm here under false pretenses i think it was a male stripper thong for chippendales that has the chris voss show logo right on the package there but i think it's in the mail there's a lot of there's a lot i gotta tell you lee the checks in the mail there. But I think it's in the mail. There's a lot of, there's a lot, I got to tell you, Lee, the checks in the mail, there's a lot of distribution issues around. I understand. I understand. I'll stick around this once, but if I'm on the show a third time,

I better have that merch. It's on a container ship in Long Beach Harbor, from my understanding. So that should be here. Evidently, most stuff that you order now, you're not even going to get for Christmas. So have fun with that.

But I don't even have copies. As I was telling you in the green room, the luxurious green room before the show. I don't even have copies of my own book yet. I haven't seen it. Yeah, did you get the free coffee that was in there? There's free coffee and I think there's some candies. I did get the keto bars, though.

Thank you for that. Did you? It was from 2001. Be careful. You might want to drink lots of liquid after that. So welcome to the show. Let's talk about your darn book, man. You got a hot new book right off the shelves and what motivated you want to you know write more than

40 books i'm we're losing track here do you even know how many books you've written exactly i think it's about 40 now i have a very expensive family they keep me chained to this desk writing you've got one of those ball and chains like i do you can't see it but it's here i'm not allowed to leave my wife just throws in sandwiches and famous amos cookies and a Diet Coke every so often. We're glad we got you the keto bar so you can have some variations. We'll try and send some snacks or something with the coffee and the thong piece from the Chris Voss show. So give us a rundown on this newest book. What is it about?

I don't know the book. I just have the exciting uncorrected galley. But the third book in the Eve Ronan series is about the youngest female homicide detective in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. And the book opens with her and her much older partner doing an undercover sting operation in a gated community, hoping to grab some home invaders. And their sting works really well. It actually brings out the invaders, but things don't go quite as they had planned. It turns into a bloodbath. And it launches even to a whole new investigation into the world of gated communities in Calabasas. The people who live in these gated communities think that the gates keep all the evil out. But what it really does is lock the evil inside with them. It sounds like Las Vegas. And I know from personal experience.

I live in one of those gated communities. I was president of my HOA for 14 years. So I've seen it all. That sounds like the gated communities in Las Vegas, actually. But no. So the evil inside the gated communities. So this is part of, it says here on the Amazon, three of four. Is there only going to be four of these?

No, no. I've written three books. The fourth one's coming out in June. So it's up there for pre-order. part of is it says here on the amazon three of four is there only going to be four of the no no i've written three books the fourth one's coming out in june so it's up there for pre-order and if this book's successful the one in june is successful hopefully they'll be books five six seven eight and nine i hope to keep writing eve ronan books as long as readers keep buying them now what do you like most about this character and why are you like focusing on her because you have other characters through other book series correct i do but this series has been my most commercially successful and my most critically successful i think it's because it's not the cliched middle-aged worn down weary cop who's recovering from alcoholism or a drug

addiction or haunted by the serial killer in his past who's extremely competent but his his co-workers don't realize it i mean we've seen that to death and it's only been done well a few times and i decided to do something different this is this woman's 25 years old she doesn't know it all she makes huge mistakes she's got a gift for investigation but she hasn't marshaled her skills yet or mastered her skills yet. And it's in a corner of Los Angeles that hasn't been explored by other fiction. It's in the Lost Hills jurisdiction of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. That's an island within Los Angeles that's bordered by L.A. and the Pacific Ocean

and Ventura County. And within that jurisdiction, you've got Hidden Hills, which is a very exclusive gated community. You've got a bunch of gated communities, in fact. You've got rural Topanga, hippy-dippy Topanga. You've got the ranches and whatnot in Agoura. You've got the Santa Monica Mountains. You've got the Santa Monica, the Malibu Creek State Park, which is not just a state park, but also a movie set.

So there's a lot of different environments and social classes and things going on within that unique jurisdiction, plus the jurisdictional disputes with the LAPD, the Ventura County Sheriff's Department and others. So it gives me a lot to write about and a lot of landscape that readers haven't encountered before, either in fiction or in the 670,000 cop shows that have been shot in Los Angeles. I think I used to live, didn't I used to live near Topanga Canyon, La Crescenta? I can't tell you where you used to live, Chris. That's a question you're going to have to answer on your own. No, I just know Topanga Canyon to cross through. That's what it is.

I used to live in La Crescenta. That's a long way from Topanga Canyon. that's a long way from Topanga Canyon. I don't know why I'm making those two adjustments. So what is her official title? What does she do? She's a homicide detective in the Los Angeles station of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. She got the job not because

she deserved it or because she has great experience. she got it because of well scandal popularity scandal in the la county sheriff's department with all kinds of stuff beatings in the jails and tattooed deputy gangs beating up people and in her case fame because she stopped a movie star who was beating up his girlfriend and that arrest that after the arrest was caught by people on their phones off duty and and made her popular overnight and the sheriff wanted to put her story up front and take the focus off of all the negativity in the sheriff's department and kept promoting her and giving her plaudits and things in order to keep the positive press going

so she's resented by her by her co-workers because she's in a job she doesn't deserve and she knows she doesn't deserve it, but she'll take it anyway. That's an interesting – what's the word I'm looking for? It's interesting conflict of characters and plot, right? That's what keeps it interesting for me as a writer, and I hope for readers as well. I think conflict is what drives drama, and conflict is what drives humor. So I try to create situations that are rife with conflict so I have something to write about. There you go.

Because I don't think people remember the mysteries. It's not the mysteries that count. It's the characters and their point of view. It's people you want to spend time with, that you want to let into your head for days or weeks at a time. So to me, the key is finding a character that will stick. So we're excited to announce my new book is coming out. It's called Beacons of Leadership, Inspiring Lessons of Success in Business and Innovation. It's going to be coming out on October 5th, 2021.

And I'm really excited for you to get a chance to read this book. It's filled with a multitude of my insightful stories, lessons, my life, and experiences in leadership and character. I give you some of the secrets from my CEO Entrepreneur Toolbox that I use to scale my business success, innovate, and build a multitude of companies. I've been a CEO for, what is it, like 33, 35 years now. We talk about leadership, the importance of leadership, how to become a great leader, and how anyone can become a great leader as well. So you can pre-order the book right now wherever fine books are sold, but the best thing to do on getting a pre-order deal is to go to beaconsofleadership.com. That's

beaconsofleadership.com. On there, you can find several packages you can take advantage of in ordering the book. And for the same price of what you can get it from someplace else like Amazon, you can get all sorts of extra goodies that we've taken and given away. Different collectors, limited edition, custom-made numbered book plates that are going to be autographed by me. There's all sorts of other goodies that you can get when you buy the book from beaconsofleadership.com. So be sure to go there, check it

out, or order the book wherever fine books are sold. So give us some, can you tease us out any little bits or setups that people can be like, I need to find out more about that. It's not a hobby routine. There is some good investigation. Bits to the book.

It's also because she's had some success in the previous two books and she comes from a family in Hollywood and her mom is a struggling actress. Her dad was an itinerant television director. Her success has bred a lot of Hollywood interest and in the course of this book, Hollywood is pursuing her for a television pilot, which she does not want to do.

But they're going to do it with or without her. So she reluctantly gets involved in the development of a TV pilot about herself. So she finds herself competing not only with the expectations of those around her, but with the potential idolization, I say of of a hollywood version of her oh wow and her horror her nightmare is having to compete with some beautiful brilliant television version of herself that she cannot possibly match i have that problem in life brad pitt is based around my true life yeah i'm mistaken for daniel craig all the time i mean i can't tell you how often people have come up to me and said, do you really want this to be your last James Bond movie?

That was the only reason I booked you, is I thought we were doing the James Bond thing for the new movie. You can see the Bond posters over there behind me. Yeah, there you go. Which Bond is it? Meet James Bond. That one's the Rush with Love. I have the whole collection.

I alternate posters every few weeks. Have you seen the new movie? I have. Ah. So I think it's one of the best Bond movies, but there's a portion of it I don't like. Yeah, I can guess what the portion is you don't like. Yeah, yeah. Do you think there's a setup for something else in there? No.

I think that they've decided to do with Bond what they have done with Batman and Superman and Spider-Man, which is just reinvented every time, which is fine. Maybe that's what the franchise needs because it was a kind of awkward transition between Sean Connery, George Lazapie, and Roger Moore, essentially being the same character with the same backstory. And they kept that through Pierce Brosnan. But with Daniel Craig, they started fresh and said,

in Casino Royale, that was his first mission. He was a raw guy. He wasn't quite James Bond yet. So maybe they'll do something like that in the in the next round we'll talk after the show uh in agreement because i don't want to do spoilers for people but i thought it was really well done there wasn't the corniness of some sometimes through the bond series they'll do corny the kitschy stuff that you're just like the way the bond series up until daniel craig has defied what i was talking about in terms of conflict one of the great things about Bond

is he's greater than everybody around him. That's the pleasure of watching it. He's James Bond. When he starts doing cool stuff, it's yeah. But the Bourne movies, I think, really bruised the Bond franchise because you had a hero who was brilliant and a superhero,

but also felt pain and had all this angst that somehow made bond seem superficial and one-dimensional in a way that that he hadn't seen before when it was okay just to enjoy him for being everybody's dream of the super secret agent yeah and i think in some ways that was a mistake i missed personally the humor and fun in the early uh daniel. Did you? Yeah, I'm going to be an outlier. I think the best James Bonds were Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan. Really? Yeah.

I thought Sean Connery was the perfect Bond, and I thought Pierce Brosnan was the perfect bridge between the lighter, swab, more debonair Roger Moore approach and the harder-edged Sean Connery approach. Timothy Dalton was good and daniel i think tim daniel craig and timothy dalton are tied for me i would put roger moore in the at the bottom just because those movies have not aged well that there was they were just so kitschy and toyish but back to your book now that we're turning this into john james bond show what other things do you want to tease out in your book or entice?

I think if you like police procedurals, you'll like the Eve Ronan series. It gives you everything you enjoy from the Ian Rankin, John Rebus books or Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch books with a twist, with something fresh and different. And I think one thing that really sets my police procedurals apart from a lot of the others out there is there's a lot of humor in the books. Because I just don't believe in a world without humor. One argument I have against a lot of the police procedurals that I read and enjoy is they're utterly humorless. And for me, that makes them unrealistic. Because I know in my own life, even in moments of horrible tragedy and sadness, there's always some humor and i'm not talking about you know one-liners and stupid black humor cop jokes but humor that comes out of character interaction and that just

naturally arises when you're dealing with people who are friends or family and i think that makes them easier to read especially when dealing with some uncomfortable forensics and there's some i don't want to give it away but there's some pretty brutal stuff in gated prey which i think would be hard to take if it wasn't leavened with some humor and humanity um rather than just focusing on what i think in some books is gore porn or forensic porn where they get way too into the blood and guts of these murders to somehow establish how real they are i think there are some authors who feel if the audience isn't repelled or depressed it's not real writing that's not me what do you find usually inspires you when you're right character i always come at it from character the eve ronan series was born out of another book that i wanted to write i had

another police procedural in mind and i attended a homicide investigators training conference in green bay wisconsin it's a conference that's exclusively for homicide or law enforcement uh professionals i got snuck in because i know the guy who runs the seminar and there was a case presented there by the detectives and prosecutors who had worked it as an example of why it is important to approach each homicide as if you've never investigated a homicide before to to leave all your homicide investigators common sense at home and approach it as a virgin which is impossible to do but they this particular case would not have been solved if you fell for any of the natural assumptions that homicide investigators have about certain kinds of

evidence and behaviors and this case fascinated me I thought, how do you come to a case as a virgin? I give a complete neophyte this case. You don't become a homicide detective if you don't have experience. How can I do that? And so the character was born and it was the character that made the case interesting. I ended up throwing out the book I came there to write or to research, I should say say and developed a whole new character and used this case as inspiration i went to the detectives and blood spatter analysts and prosecutors who were presenting the case and told them i'm gonna write a novel based on this case i'm gonna move it to los angeles i'm gonna change it and i'm gonna hit you guys up for information

and they went yeah sure you will and i did that became the book first lost i still can't do it right lost hills i'm all messed up with this camera but you can see the poster behind me yeah that became the book lost hills which was a very big success and launched the the series i'm doing there you go there you go so why did you pick the name eve ronan is there a reference i don't remember exactly how i came to the name but ronan is for a Japanese warrior. I explained that in one of the books. I explained that her mom's real name was Ronan, R-O-N-A-N. She saw Seven Samurai or some

Japanese movie and thought Ronan would be cooler and changed her name. Thought it would get her more acting jobs. I guess Eve for the first woman. Adam and Eve. I don't know. Eve Ronan sounded good to me. There you go. Any shots of the movie? Are you working on any other movie or TV projects? I am. Some of them I can't talk about. You mentioned earlier Mystery 101, which is a TV

series I co-created, which there have now been seven movies on Hallmark. They're about to start an eighth one, I think. And my book, The Walk, has been optioned by Constantine and they have a director attached. I can't talk about the details. And another book I wrote, True Fiction, is being developed as a TV series with a big-name producer. Not me, big-name producer and a terrific star attached to that one. And again, I can't talk about it at the moment. But to me, they aren't real until I'm sitting on the set. I've had a lot of books and scripts optioned by big-name stars and directors that have gone nowhere. You know, I cash the check and I smile and I nod and I tell them how excited I am about

it until it actually makes it on the screen. And I've been on the other side. I've been hired to adapt other people's novels. And so I know the whole experience. I don't get excited. What I tell all these producers and actors and directors is I'll be as involved as you want me to be, but also be as uninvolved as you want me to be. If you want me to sit at home and wait for the show to show up on CBS and watch the episodes like everybody else, I'm fine to do that. If you want me actively involved in the show, I'll be actively involved. But you do what you think is best. Because I've been on the other end of that.

I've been on shows based on books where the author was an extraordinary pain in the ass just and others where it was great we could call upon the author when we needed him or her and and they were supportive and not intrusive because there are too many authors who don't realize that a television show is completely different from in a movie not completely different from the book and you have to allow the creative people to make it their own. Your book isn't carved in stone or etched in marble, whatever. I think I've mixed up that metaphor. That's the way I'm a high-paid writer. But I'm very easygoing about the adaptations of my work.

And I've read some of them that have been great. I've read some that have been terrible. I'm just glad there's a Hollywood interest. There you go. As long as the check clears, that's all that really matters. Yeah, that's all that matters. So my wife has the money to buy the sandwiches and the diet coke she tosses into my padded cell here there you go there you go well that'll definitely work anything more you want to tease out on the

book before we go out i just think everybody should buy it no library is complete without the eve ronan series all three novels which are available on amazon and from your favorite independent bookseller or at least all 40 of your books for that matter. All 40, yeah. Buy them all, but the Eve Ronan books are what I'm hyping right now, not the older stuff. There you go.

It was wonderful to have you on the show. As always, we'll look forward to having you on for four of four and all that good stuff. And give us your plugs one more time. I'm very hard to find. My website is LeeGoldberg.com. I'm Lee Goldberg on Twitter, and I'm website is lee goldberg.com i'm lee goldberg on twitter and i'm lee goldberg on facebook and i'm lee goldberg right now on this show

and by the way i'm not wearing any pants clearly we need to get you a chris voss show thong so you can cover that up anyway guys thanks lee for coming on the show i think now that i know he's not wearing pants thanks for coming on the show we certainly appreciate it now that I know he's not wearing pants. Thanks for coming on the show. We certainly appreciate it. My pleasure. Thanks, Vaz, for tuning in. Hopefully all of you wearing pants. Go to youtube.com forward slash Chris Vaz. Go to goodreads.com forward slash

Chris Vaz. Go to all our groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you guys next time.