Eve Ronin is now on her 2nd book and her 2nd big case. Bones are discovered after fires have destroyed areas in Lost Hills, uncovering bones. A forensic anthropologist, Daniel, is called in and tells Eve they are bones all over the hillside. They identify the bones as Sabrina Morton, a woman that went missing 6 years earlier.
Meanwhile, Eve is recovering from a wrist injury, and her sister has pushed her to see a tough physical therapist. Eve sees this as an annoyance.
As Eve digs into the bones case, she recognizes that she is going to make a lot of enemies in the Sheriff's department, as evidence was buried years earlier.
Another great Eve Ronin investigation. ( )

http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2021-01.html#goldberg ( )

I loved this even more than the first book. The mystery was just as good but this was a lot funnier as well. Eve and Duncan settled into a more comfortable banter and I'll be sorry to see him retire. Eve's not much of a team player but I'm glad that she's starting to see there are people she could come to trust. Or something like that. I didn't see the twist at the end coming I sort of kept feeling that the serial numbers on their plates was important but couldn't quite get there. but it was extremely enjoyable nonetheless.

Eve is a great character. I liked that she was unwilling to compromise on justice but her hesitancy in playing politics annoyed me a bit - felt like a contradiction. I mean she leapfrogged everyone to get into homicide and it feels a bit like a betrayal to back away from that and say she's not interested or aware of politics - because that's a lie. On the other hand it was kind of pure Eve - she's a flawed individual with her own problems and insecurities and perceptions of what a good person should and shouldn't be - so maybe it actually fit her to a t. I liked that she was willing to own up to her mistakes and admit to not knowing things but trying her best to learn and adapt and improve. Besides Duncan sums her up best.

“But he didn’t. That’s all that matters. You’re always going to make mistakes in an investigation, especially when you’re new. It’s called ‘learning from experience.’ I’m not worried about your skills as a detective. You’ve got a gift. I’m worried about your skills as a person.” “You’re saying I’m a terrible person?”
“You’re not evil,” Duncan said. “You’re just self-destructive and not very likable.”
“Gee, thanks.”

Goldberg, Lee. Bone Canyon (Eve Ronin) (p. 263). Thomas & Mercer. Kindle Edition.

I liked her embrace her looks towards the end with the help of Burnside (who I also really liked) and will be interested to see where that goes in the next book. I did like that it was explained why she was so against the idea of a tv show - she doesn't want her parents to 'win' - if she does a show - they'll be involved and that's their dream - even though they've made her life hell. Frankly - I liked the pettiness of it. Eve tries to be a good person but she's not an angel - she has thoughts and feelings. I adored Jen (Eve's mother) and her meddling. Her ideas on acting and politics and Eve's behaviour is hilarious.

The mystery was interesting. For all Sabrina Morton is dead, Goldberg really sold her as a fully formed person.
Eve put the phone away. “What did Sabrina do with the drawing?”
“She went to Topanga Beach, Surfrider Beach, Zuma . . . showing the tattoo to every surfer she could find, hoping somebody would give her a name. She was only at it an hour or so before a deputy got word somehow, pulled her over, and told her what she was doing was stupid and dangerous. Sabrina told him to fuck off, that if the cops weren’t going to do anything about it, she would,” Josie said, smiling at the memory. “That was Sabrina. But it was all bravado. She came home and cried for three hours. She felt helpless.”
Sabrina wasn’t helpless, Eve thought. Far from it. She was unwilling to be a silent victim and fought for herself, loud and strong, not just against her attackers, but against the detective who didn’t believe her.

Goldberg, Lee. Bone Canyon (Eve Ronin) (p. 66). Thomas & Mercer. Kindle Edition.
Josie was sidelined a bit but she was also smart and cunning, even when she wasn't quite ready to face her attackers. Keeping her clothes as an insurance policy was brilliant.

Daniel was alright - the romance between them didn't escalate to extremes - they just like each other and progress as is. I liked that he was an anthropologist and his dedication to his job. I loved his suggestion of what to buy a five year old - a treasure hunting kit - hide some fake jewellery and gold, etc in the backyard and provide the kids with a sieve, bucket, shovel, etc for them to dig up. I've got to remember that for my niece and nephew.

Overall I just really enjoyed this addition to the series. I'm only disappointed the next book isn't out until October 2021. That's ages away. I was lucky I happened to pick up Lost Hills, the first book in the series, the day before Bone Canyon was released or I would have been very sad. Anyway, great book, highly recommend. 4.5 stars. ( )

The second Eve Ronin mystery has her investigating murders that were uncovered when wildfires travel through a canyon and expose the bones. With her partner counting down his days to retirement, Eve has to learn quickly in her position as the youngest homicide detective in the Sheriff's Department.

Her first case made her a media darling which annoys her fellow deputies and annoys her, but her mother who has spent her career as an extra on many TV shows and her father who is a producer are both pressuring her to sign with an agent and go for the Hollywood life.

When her current case leads to the possibility of corruption in the sheriff's department, she doesn't know who she can trust except for her partner. She knows that she's going to follow the evidence wherever it takes her and whatever it shows. And when the bones of a second victim are found the case gets even more complicated.

I enjoyed this audiobook which stars an intriguing main character and has lots of information about the entertainment industry in Southern California. ( )

'Bone Canyon' was like good TV streaming across my imagination. I slipped into Lee Goldberg's perfectly paced story the way people slip into a warm bath - relaxing as I let the plot flow around me.

I admire Lee Goldberg's craftsmanship - but only after the fact - while I'm reading the story I'm too immersed in it to think about how it's being done. Lee Goldberg is a master of the four Ps of a good police procedural: People, Place, Plot and Pace and he keeps them perfectly balanced.

The people are the hook. Eve Ronin is easy to like: earnest, focused, hard to intimidate and with no agenda other than discovering what really happened in each case she's working. As we saw in the first book, 'Lost Hills'. what makes Eve stand out is that she became the youngest Homicide detective in the LA County Sheriff’s Department by leveraging a viral video of her taking down a famous mixed martial arts movie star who was abusing his girlfriend. This, and the triple homicide she solved in the first book and the second viral video that captured its dramatic conclusion, have established Eve as a publicity hound with political ambitions.

This undeserved reputation is cemented because her bosses are so deeply political that they see Eve's denial of any political ambition as evidence of its existence and by Hollywood agents who are determined to turn her fame into revenue from a show based on her life. I enjoyed watching Eve's struggle as politicians and producers try to turn her into who they want her to be while she's trying to focus on finding out who the skeletons found the hills belonged to and how they died.

The chemistry between Eve and her I'm-retiring-in-less-than-200-days Partner-turned-mentor works well for plot exposition and for making Eve a little more vulnerable. She's also made more human by her struggles with her self-absorbed parents, her hookup with an eccentric but attractive forensic scientist obsessed with bones and the stories they tell him and her resistance to doing the exercises that her determined surfer-boy physiotherapist wants her to do to repair the wrist she injured in the 'Lost Hills'

By setting the story in Los Angeles County, rather than Los Angeles itself, Lee Goldberg has given Eve a larger, more varied and less well-known territory to work in and he brings it alive with small details that show how a local would see the place rather than how it's presented in travel guides. I liked that, as well as including details about local eateries, architecture and the pervasive influence of the movie business, he used the geography of the canyons and the recent wildfires to drive the plot.

The plot is full of surprises. The more Eve digs, the more bones she finds and the more complicated the story becomes. We get stories of rapes and murders that may or may not be connected, possible police corruption either covering up or carrying out the crimes and a sleazy hate-him-on-sight TV star who I really hoped wouldn't make it to the end of the book. Apart from forensic evidence being processed faster than seems likely and Eve having a little more luck than you might expect, the plot and the exposition felt plausible. I liked that the victims of the crime remained as important as the race to solve the puzzle and the that the often sordid history of the Los Angeles police was built in to the plot and confronted without being either glossed over or demonised.

The pacing is pretty much perfect. Engagement with people and plot disposition march along side-by-side, amplifying each other's impact and keeping me eagerly turning the pages. Some very tense action scenes are mixed in with moments of internal politics, details of forensic investigations, interviews with suspects and witnesses and Eve's private life.

I found this second visit with Eve Ronin as entertaining as the first. I'm a little more invested in her now and I'm keen to get to the next two books in the series. ( )