Review of "Hidden in Smoke: A Sharpe & Walker Thriller" by Lee Goldberg

This crossover novel, which features two of Lee Goldberg's Los Angeles detective teams, works fine as a standalone. In the book, Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) arson investigators Walter Sharpe and Andrew Walker.....





.....work with Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) homicide detectives Eve Ronin and Duncan 'Donuts' Pavone.



The story has three threads that merge towards the book's climax. I'm going to be a little vague, to avoid spoilers.

As the book opens, a master thief known to the police - who's taken steps to hide his identity - is relaxing in the spa of a luxury hotel.



The perp thinks he's unrecognizable, but a cop tracks him down and makes a deal: 'I won't turn you in if you get the new owner of a pharmaceutical company to lower the price of Xylaphram. The drug used to cost $10,000 per year, and the greedy new owner raised the price to $150,000 per year....and my son needs the medicine.'





The perp agrees, and organizes an audacious plan that involves stealing a 40-million-dollar Infinitum watch from the world's most impregnable museum, the 'Gallery of Curiosities' on Surudoikiba Island in Japan. That's all I'll say about this sub-plot, except to note that it's VERY entertaining.



Meanwhile, back in Los Angeles, fires have been breaking out. A series of blazes have been set in carports under apartment buildings, and the LAFD assigns the case to Walter Sharpe - who's an arson expert, and Andrew Walker - a former U.S. Marshall who's an ace manhunter.





Sharpe and Walker discover the carport fires were started with Duraflame logs, which are designed to burn steadily for at least three hours. This allowed the arsonist to move from site to site before the flames got big enough to attract attention. Sharpe and Walker collect clues and expect to get credit for a 'solve'.



However a bigger crisis arises, and the carport arson case is transferred to LAFD investigators Pete Caffrey and Al Scruggs - who think they're hilarious when they call Walter Sharpe 'Shar-Pei' for his droopy features and dogged pursuit of perpetrators.



Meanwhile, a HUGE FIRE has immolated an overpass of the Santa Monica Freeway, which cuts across the center of Los Angeles. The road is one of the city's busiest and most important arteries, moving over 300,000 vehicles a day. The fire that shuts down the Santa Monica Freeway cripples the city, and the Emmy Awards are only two weeks away!!



Thus the mayor of Los Angeles and governor of California are determined to repair the overpass at lightning speed.



Los Angeles County Sheriff Richard Lansing assigns the freeway case to Sharpe and Walker, giving them unlimited resources to investigate.





Sharpe and Walker learn the land below the overpass, where the inferno started, is leased by Southland Premiere Properties. Southland, in turn, subleases parcels to many small businesses, including a car salvage operation, a painting company, and storage lots for resellers of old tires and pallets. All these businesses have flammable materials.



To add to the danger, there's a homeless encampment alongside the businesses. The homeless enclave is "a firetrap full of half-assed electrical hookups, propane gas grills, and addicts freebasing smack." Worse yet, it seems Caltrans inspectors "saw what was going on down there and let it go."



It turns out the overpass fire was arson, and Sharpe and Walker examine the crime scene and interview witnesses/persons of interest. Along the way Sharpe and Walker find the body of a murdered Caltrans inspector.....



......and they team up with LAPD detectives Eve Ronin and Duncan Pavone to investigate the various related crimes.



As the story approaches its denouement, all three threads - the carport arsons, the freeway arson, and the watch thief - merge in a rather creative fashion.

I like Lee Goldberg's writing and I enjoyed the story. However, the book requires a HUGE suspension of disbelief. The 'champions' (so to speak) in this story are incredibly clever and super lucky, and EVERY situation falls their way - things that would never happen in real life.

So, though I recommend the book, I advise readers to just sit back and enjoy a tale that would be a pipe dream in the actual world.



Thanks to Netgalley, Lee Goldberg, and Thomas & Mercer for a copy of the book.

 Rating: 3.5 stars