Watch Me Die

A fun light/dark humor novella!<br /><br />Harvey Mapes is a security guard at a gated community in Los Angeles. Not much happens during the night shift and Harvey spends a lot of time reading detective novels and watching old detective tv shows. Dreaming of being a PI himself, when a homeowner, Cyril Parkus asked Harvey to tail his wife, Lauren, he readily accepts. Soon Harvey came to the realization that being a real detective isn't as easy as he once thought!<br /><br />Lee Goldberg did a fine job with Harvey. He's sort of quirky and humorous, you can't help but root for him with his first PI gig using tricks he learned from book and tv heroes. Hearing familiar fictional detective names reference was an added bonus, my favs are Magnum PI ('80s) and Elvis Cole. ?<br /><br />An enjoyable quick read/listen. 147pages or 5hr 42m

Security Guard Harvey Mapes spends most of his time with his nose in detective books or watching detective series on TV. He daydreams of being a detective, and is suddenly given the opportunity to turn that dream into reality, or maybe just into a nightmare. Interesting enough story-line, but for the most part, it is just a vehicle for weak humor, especially around women’s body parts and masturbation. While I was reading, I was almost sure this must have been written in the 1980s and so shocked to see it was published as late as 2005. A reminder of what I thought was risqué and funny back before I grew up.

Author Lee Goldberg has what most Mystery/Thriller writes lack; a literary sense of humor. Private security guard Harvey Mapes works the graveyard shift on the gate of an exclusive Los Angeles suburb reading detective novels. Since he's up on all the TV and fiction detective series, he feels entirely qualified to accept an offer from wealthy resident Cyril Parkus to follow his beautiful wife Lauren and report back if she's unfaithful. He discovers he has a knack for detecting until confronted with Lauren's sudden jump off a freeway overpass. He keeps asking himself what would Mannix, Maverick, Frank Cannon or Travis McGee do now which had me rooting for Harvey to succeed in his investigation even after it's terminated by his "client" Parkus. He's obsessed with discovering why Lauren jumped onto freeway traffic and his continuing investigation leads to blackmail and murder<br /><br />This is an entertaining mystery with a strong, satisfactory twist finish which hopefully, leaves the door open for a sequel. I like Harvey, his new girlfriend Carol and new sense of confidence.

Loved <i>'Watch Me Die'</i> and was hopeful this might have been made into a series. As the book concluded it became clear why it would not. This book flew by - always enjoy Lee Goldberg's books.<br />Luke Daniels did a terrific job with the narration. His voice is exceptionally dynamic and added much to the excitement.

The best thing about reading Lee Goldberg is how he manages to inject pure silliness into otherwise un-funny situations, and pulls it off with aplomb. My first forays with the author were reading his Ian Ludlow series, which were hilarious and entertaining. Watch Me Die wasn’t quite as funny, but well done nevertheless and very well paced. So much so, in fact, that the thing is over before you know it, and it left me wishing for more.<br /><br />Harvey Mapes, the protagonist and narrator, is a perfect Goldberg character: a sad-sack who knows he’s one, but aspires to more. And, given the ironic opportunity, makes good on that aspiration. Along the way, he discovers love, real love, not the fantasy life he’s been indulging while binge-watching private eye TV shows like Mannix and the Rockford Files. He also discovers himself, which goes hand-in-hand with the former discovery. It’s all very satisfying and reminds the reader of Goldberg’s talent. <br /><br />It would be easy to mistake the writing for zany or slapstick and the plot as too far-fetched. But scratch just a bit beneath the surface and you’ll find a pretty well drawn plot with some interesting twists, a handful of memorable characters, and yeah, some really funny tongue-in-cheek allusions to the whole genre of TV and fiction novels dedicated to the stereotypical PI (which, by the way, Goldberg has penned aplenty for the small screen). <br /><br />At its core, Watch Me Die is a deceptively well done book, full of entertaining scenes and laughs when you need them. I continue to enjoy this author and hope for a sequel.

<strong>Surprised</strong><br /><br />I bought this book on my Kindle, and was in the middle of another book when I started reading it. The language and sex were a little much and sometimes I felt sorry for the lead character. He seemed to be "mentally challenged" and wanted to be a "PI," like mystery books portray, but instead he seemed to be more of a bumbling idiot. This author took this character and literally brought him to adulthood by the end of the book. He is not the same person in the end and I finished the book realizing that we all have our own faults and that it's not always wrong to face them straight on in order to be who we were meant to be; which wrong or right, good or bad, everyone has a point in their lives where decisions must be made and we must all look in the mirror and face the certainty that all actions must result in reactions. A good book. It will leave you wondering what would have happened to you if you had taken "the road less traveled."

I loved this book. It's got a great premise whereby the "hero," such as he is, seems pretty damn close to a real person — a slovenly, underachieving, regular Joe who almost accidentally turns into a halfway-decent detective by the end. We're not talking about a superhero. We're talking about a guy who drives a beater and who gets beaten up. His transformation is a hell of a lot of fun to watch. <br /><br />Truth be told, I'd probably give this 92 out of 100. One shortcoming: the ending kind of flops over the finish line. But that's picking at nits: the ending is solid (perhaps I just wanted more, since I was enjoying it so much?), and the writing throughout is often laugh-out-loud funny. More to the point, I recommended "Watch Me Die" to my father — a real connoisseur of detective fiction — and he loved it, too.<br /><br />Still laughing at some of the lines in this fast little novel. Hats off, Lee Goldberg.

Goldberg consistently delivers enjoyable, easy reads IMO.<br />Nothing I'll remember this time next year, but definitely something I'm glad I chose to listen to while I decorated my Christmas tree. Doesn't hurt it being on the Kindle Unlimited catalog and having audio available with it.<br /><br />The characters in this book are likeable, yet flawed. Reminiscent of USA Network type entertainment. But the story for me was one of intrigue. This book could have been 100 pages longer to really fill out the story line even more, but as is, it sufficed.<br /><br />Would recommend for someone wanting a quick, light-hearted read.

Although one shouldn’t equate others with their most “notorious” work, I find that I have misjudged the authors of television and film adaptations as being limited to those efforts. I did this with Max Allen Collins and I have done this with Lee Goldberg. I should have known better with the latter, especially due to his screenwriting credits on several television series—most conspicuously on my radar, <i>Monk</i>. I didn’t even have to read ten (10) pages in <i>The Man with the Iron-On Badge</i> before I knew that this was, as the Monte Python group used to say, “…something completely different.”<br /><br />Oh, <i>The Man with the Iron-On Badge</i> still featured Goldberg’s humor and penchant for turning the most ridiculous situation into black comedy, but it also features language that would have sent Adrian Monk looking for a “wipe” for his ears and an obsession for sex that would have left the adolescents in <i>Porky’s</i> looking as abstemious as Bernard of Clairvaux. And it features the most fascinating conceit of an ambitionless rent-a-cop who spends the graveyard shift watching <i>Mannix</i> and <i>The Rockford Files</i> re-runs at his guard shack being thrust into situations where he is uniquely unqualified compared to those television P.I.s who could shrug off bullet-holes, concussions, and near-fatal beatings to solve crimes/mysteries within an hour (minus the commercial insertions) of broadcast entertainment.<br /><br /><i>The Man with the Iron-On Badge</i> should probably have a wide yellow bad with a bold, black lettered disclaimer reading, “Kids, don’t try this is real-life. Imitation may cause physical pain, emotional duress, biological discomfort, and fatal consequences.” Indeed, Harvey Mapes personally suffers the first three while others seem to be sacrificed in his place for the last. Sorry if that’s a spoiler! No author in her or his right mind would kill off a protagonist this hapless, hilarious, and interesting in the first volume where said character appears. [NOTE: I suppose the screenwriter of <i>The Third Man</i> did this with Harry Lime, subsequently to be resurrected in a serious of radio episodes touted as prequels, but I can’t think of any others off-hand. I can’t imagine Billy Wilder writing prequels to <i>Sunset Boulevard</i>, even if Lord Weber did pull “the boy” out of the pool every night on the musical stage.]<br /><br />Still, Harvey Mapes pulls off some incredibly lucky stunts, despite his misguided perception that, instead of being like a box of chocolates, life is like a television series. And, Harvey makes some predictable mistakes. In between the lucky stunts and the predictable mistakes is a fascinating mystery with some unexpected twists and turns. I could have done without some of the Tarantino-esque phrasing and the Seth Rogen-esque obsessions, but <i>The Man with the Iron-On Badge</i> was good reading, nonetheless. <br />

I enjoyed the tone of this book more than the plot. The story was well-crafted, and the characters were at least theoretically plausible; but it was the painful vulnerability of the main character that drove the book. Goldberg did an excellent job of making Harvey's Walter Mitty persona lovable. I really enjoyed the frequent reference to some of my favorite fictitious detectives (Joe Mannix, Jim Rockford, Kinsey Milhone, Elvis Cole, and Travis McGee to name a few), whose activities and antics were Harvey's inspiration and guide. The only negative comment I have is that I thought the book could have been a little less crude - uneducated people are not necessarily classless, as Harvey and Carol were written.