Lee Goldberg Books in Order (Updated September 10, 2026)

Lee Goldberg is an American novelist, screenwriter, television producer, and crime writer whose bibliography ranges from original detective series to television tie-in novels, humorous thrillers, police procedurals, arson investigations, and collaborations with Janet Evanovich. His current fiction includes Eve Ronin, Sharpe and Walker, Edison Bixby, and several standalone crime novels.

Goldberg has written more than sixty novels, so the cleanest approach is to separate his original series from his television-based books and collaborations. Eve Ronin currently has six published novels, with Split Screen scheduled for October 2026, while Murder by Design launched a new Edison Bixby series in 2026.

Start with the version of Lee Goldberg you want

• For a modern police procedural: begin Eve Ronin with Lost Hills.
• For arson investigators: begin Sharpe and Walker with Malibu Burning.
• For a comic espionage thriller: begin Ian Ludlow with True Fiction.
• For FBI and con-artist capers: begin Fox and O’Hare with The Heist, or read the prequel novella Pros & Cons first.
• For Monk: begin Goldberg’s run with Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse.
• For Diagnosis Murder: begin with The Silent Partner.
• For Goldberg’s newest original detective: begin Edison Bixby with Murder by Design.

Eve Ronin books in order

Eve Ronin becomes the youngest homicide detective in the history of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department after a viral arrest makes her a public figure. Her sudden promotion creates resentment inside the department, and much of the series follows her effort to solve murders while confronting corruption, media attention, and people who believe she did not earn the badge.

1. Lost Hills (2020): Eve receives her first major homicide assignment when a blood-soaked home suggests that a mother and her two children have been murdered, even though no bodies can initially be found.
2. Bone Canyon (2021): Wildfires expose human remains in the hills above Los Angeles, leading Eve and veteran partner Duncan Pavone toward cold cases, sexual assault, and corruption within law enforcement.
3. Gated Prey (2021): Eve and Duncan run a sting operation inside a wealthy Calabasas community to catch violent home invaders, but the operation raises questions about whether Eve herself was the real target.
4. Movieland (2022): The shooting of a camper in Malibu Creek State Park convinces Duncan that the case may be connected to a longer series of sniper attacks that officials have refused to recognize.
5. Dream Town (2024): The murder of reality television star Kitty Winslow inside celebrity enclave Hidden Hills pulls Eve into a case involving additional bodies, entertainment-industry feuds, and a violent gang.
6. Fallen Star (2025): A corpse found inside a barrel in Malibu Lagoon leads Eve and Duncan toward a political bribery scandal and corruption that threatens to expose decisions they themselves once helped conceal.
7. Split Screen (expected October 2026): When the actress playing Eve in a television series is shot, Eve suspects the killer mistook the performer for her while a separate family problem involving one of Eve’s half-sisters draws her into another investigation.

The first six books are published. Split Screen is Book 7 and remains upcoming as of September 10, 2026.

Why Eve Ronin is better in publication order

The homicide cases change, but Eve’s professional life does not reset. Her promotion, relationship with Duncan Pavone, conflicts inside the sheriff’s department, family problems, and growing public fame all accumulate from book to book.

Later novels also bring back consequences from earlier corruption cases. Beginning with Fallen Star or Split Screen therefore reveals developments that carry more weight after the first several investigations.

Sharpe and Walker books in order

The Sharpe and Walker series follows veteran arson investigator Walter Sharpe and former U.S. Marshal Andrew Walker. Their cases focus on how fires are started, how burn patterns can reveal intent, and how arson investigations intersect with homicide, theft, fraud, and large public emergencies.

1. Malibu Burning (2023): Professional thief Danny Cole uses a devastating Southern California wildfire as cover for an elaborate revenge-driven crime while Sharpe and new partner Walker try to determine whether the fires were intentionally set.
2. Ashes Never Lie (2024): Mysterious fires in vacant houses and a separate blaze containing a corpse bring Sharpe and Walker together with Eve Ronin and Duncan Pavone in two investigations that begin to overlap.
3. Hidden in Smoke (2025): A serial arsonist burns apartment buildings across Los Angeles while a catastrophic freeway fire creates another investigation and forces Sharpe, Walker, Eve, and Duncan to work together again.

The series should be read in order because Danny Cole and the relationships among Sharpe, Walker, Eve, and Duncan carry between books.

Edison Bixby begins another Goldberg detective series

1. Murder by Design (2026): Brilliant insurance investigator Edison Bixby believes that a woman’s apparently accidental fall down a shopping-mall staircase was engineered by someone who manipulated the design of the environment to make her death appear self-inflicted.

Bixby has a traumatic brain injury that leaves him impulsively rude, while struggling actor Wally Nash is hired to help him navigate other people. The series uses architecture, product design, and ordinary built environments as clues to crimes.

Murder by Design is the first Edison Bixby novel and was published in May 2026.

Ian Ludlow thrillers in order

Ian Ludlow is a thriller novelist whose fictional terrorist plots have an unfortunate tendency to become real. He is assisted by Margo French, initially an innocent bystander and later an increasingly capable partner in the bizarre espionage situations surrounding him.

1. True Fiction (2018): A passenger jet crashes onto Waikiki using a terrorist scenario Ian once invented for the CIA, making the novelist the only person who understands how the attack was planned and therefore someone the conspirators need dead.
2. Killer Thriller (2019): Ian travels to Hong Kong to research a novel and accidentally describes a real Chinese intelligence conspiracy, causing enemy agents to conclude that the novelist must secretly be an American spy.
3. Fake Truth (2020): Ian and Margo uncover a Russian disinformation operation designed to manipulate American public opinion and provoke political decisions with potentially international consequences.

Read the trilogy in order. Margo’s development and Ian’s increasing involvement in real espionage make each installment a continuation rather than a reset.

Fox and O’Hare books Goldberg wrote with Janet Evanovich

FBI agent Kate O’Hare spends years chasing master con artist Nicolas Fox before the Bureau secretly recruits him to work with her. Together they build elaborate scams aimed at wealthy criminals who are difficult to prosecute through ordinary methods.

Prequel stories

1. Pros & Cons (2013): Kate tries to catch Nick while he is posing as a wedding planner to rob a wealthy businessman, showing their hunter-and-target relationship before the FBI partnership begins.
2. The Shell Game (2015): Another early Kate-and-Nick caper provides additional background from the period when their relationship was still built around pursuit rather than cooperation.

The five Goldberg and Evanovich novels

1. The Heist (2013): Kate finally captures Nick, only for the FBI to turn the con artist into her secret partner for an elaborate operation against a corrupt investment banker hiding beyond easy American jurisdiction.
2. The Chase (2014): Kate and Nick target a former White House official who stole a priceless Chinese artifact and now uses a private security empire to protect himself.
3. The Job (2014): The pair pursue a brutal international criminal by constructing another elaborate con designed to exploit the target’s confidence and greed.
4. The Scam (2015): Kate and Nick infiltrate the world of high-stakes gambling to expose a Macau casino owner laundering money for dictators, terrorists, and organized crime.
5. The Pursuit (2016): Nick is kidnapped after the cliffhanger ending of The Scam, forcing Kate into a chase across Europe while the man who took him prepares an attack capable of killing thousands.

Goldberg left the series after The Pursuit. Later Fox and O’Hare books were written with other collaborators and should be separated when the goal is specifically to list Lee Goldberg’s work.

Lee Goldberg’s fifteen Monk novels

Goldberg wrote fifteen original novels based on the television series Monk. Most are narrated by Natalie Teeger and follow Adrian Monk through new murder investigations outside the show’s episode plots.

1. Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse (2006): Monk investigates the killing of a firehouse dog and discovers that what appears to be a small mystery connects to a human murder.
2. Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii (2006): Natalie tries to escape Monk by vacationing in Hawaii, but he follows her and becomes obsessed with several suspicious deaths.
3. Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu (2007): A police labor dispute leaves Monk temporarily assisting a replacement force while he investigates murders and reluctantly confronts the idea of wearing the badge again.
4. Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants (2007): Former assistant Sharona Fleming returns while Natalie remains with Monk, creating personal complications around a murder investigation involving people close to both women.
5. Mr. Monk in Outer Space (2007): The murder of a producer connected to a cult science-fiction television series sends Monk into the obsessive world of fandom and entertainment.
6. Mr. Monk Goes to Germany (2008): Monk follows his psychiatrist to Germany and becomes convinced that a man he encounters there may be responsible for murder.
7. Mr. Monk Is Miserable (2008), also published as Mr. Monk Goes to France: The story continues almost immediately after Germany as Monk and Natalie travel to Paris and discover another murder mystery.
8. Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop (2009): Monk becomes involved with a private investigation company after losing his consulting arrangement with the police and suspects corruption lies behind the change.
9. Mr. Monk in Trouble (2009): A present-day murder sends Monk toward an old California mining town and a historical mystery involving an ancestor whose personality resembles his own.
10. Mr. Monk Is Cleaned Out (2010): Financial collapse costs Monk his savings while a locked-room-style murder gives him a difficult new puzzle.
11. Mr. Monk on the Road (2011): After the television series finale, Monk takes brother Ambrose on an improvised road trip and repeatedly discovers crimes that disrupt his attempt to broaden Ambrose’s world.
12. Mr. Monk on the Couch (2011): Monk investigates seemingly unrelated deaths while Natalie begins considering whether her life should continue to revolve entirely around being his assistant.
13. Mr. Monk on Patrol (2012): Monk and Natalie travel to Summit, New Jersey, where Randy Disher now serves as police chief and desperately needs help handling a sudden crime wave.
14. Mr. Monk Is a Mess (2012): Natalie returns from New Jersey to find a dead woman in her home, while Monk’s personal life continues changing after the television series ending.
15. Mr. Monk Gets Even (2013): Goldberg’s final Monk novel brings back Ambrose and Dale the Whale while Natalie makes decisions about her own future and Monk confronts another complicated case.

Goldberg specifically recommended reading Mr. Monk Goes to Germany before Mr. Monk Is Miserable because the second follows the first almost immediately. He also noted that continuity becomes increasingly important from Mr. Monk Is Cleaned Out through Mr. Monk Gets Even.

Diagnosis Murder novels in order

Goldberg wrote eight original novels based on Diagnosis Murder, the television mystery series he also wrote and produced. The books continue Dr. Mark Sloan’s habit of applying medical knowledge and relentless curiosity to homicide.

1. The Silent Partner (2003): Dr. Mark Sloan investigates a murder that places medical evidence and hidden relationships at the center of the case.
2. The Death Merchant (2004): Mark encounters a mystery involving death, deception, and a suspect whose activities cross into the world of professional criminal enterprise.
3. The Shooting Script (2005): A murder connected to the entertainment business puts Mark inside a Hollywood environment where performance and reality are difficult to separate.
4. The Waking Nightmare (2005): Mark investigates a disturbing case in which memory, perception, and medical questions complicate the evidence.
5. The Past Tense (2006): A body found near Mark’s home contains a memory card describing the first homicide he solved decades earlier, forcing him to revisit his own past.
6. The Dead Letter (2006): A murdered private investigator leaves Mark a package of evidence exposing powerful people, making almost everyone named in the files a plausible killer.
7. The Double Life (2007): Mark confronts a mystery built around hidden identities and the gap between a person’s public life and private actions.
8. The Last Word (2007): Goldberg closes his Diagnosis Murder run with another investigation that tests Mark’s ability to connect medical clues with criminal motive.

Charlie Willis books

1. My Gun Has Bullets (1995): Television actor Charlie Willis becomes entangled in a murder mystery that satirizes the absurdities, ambitions, and dangers of the entertainment business.
2. Dead Space (1997), also published as Beyond the Beyond: Charlie returns for another Hollywood mystery involving television production, strange personalities, and crime behind the industry’s artificial worlds.

The two books form a compact entertainment-industry crime series and should be read in order.

The Jury series began Goldberg’s novel career

Goldberg’s earliest novels appeared as the .357 Vigilante series and were later republished as the Jury series. They follow a vigilante-style action storyline and are very different from his later humorous mysteries and police procedurals.

1. Judgment: The series opens with an ordinary man drawn toward violent personal justice after the legal system fails to deliver the result he believes is necessary.
2. Adjourned: The vigilante story continues as the consequences of the first campaign bring new enemies and further pressure.
3. Payback: Revenge and pursuit escalate as the protagonist’s activities attract increasingly dangerous opposition.
4. Guilty: The fourth book closes the early action series and forces the accumulated choices of the previous novels toward a reckoning.

The Dead Man books Goldberg co-created and wrote

Goldberg and William Rabkin created The Dead Man, a supernatural action series built around Matthew Cahill. Many authors later contributed installments, but Goldberg and Rabkin wrote the opening books.

1. Face of Evil (2011), with William Rabkin: Matthew Cahill survives an impossible death and returns to a world where he can perceive supernatural corruption hiding inside apparently ordinary people.
2. Hell in Heaven (2011), with William Rabkin: Cahill’s search for the truth behind his condition takes him to another community where supernatural evil is operating beneath a normal surface.

The larger Dead Man series continues with books by other writers, so readers specifically tracking Goldberg should distinguish his contributions from the complete franchise.

Standalones and independent Lee Goldberg thrillers

1. The Walk (2004): A television executive stranded far from home after a catastrophic Los Angeles earthquake tries to walk across a shattered city to reach his family.
2. Watch Me Die (2005), also published as The Man with the Iron-On Badge: Security guard Harvey Mapes becomes obsessed with private-eye fiction and sees a surveillance assignment as his chance to become the detective he has always imagined himself to be.
3. King City (2012): A police officer is transferred to an isolated precinct and confronts a neighborhood where corruption and criminal power have become part of everyday life.
4. McGrave (2012): A relentless Los Angeles cop pursuing a criminal ends up in Germany, creating a fast, deliberately exaggerated action story with the pace of an old television cop show.
5. Fast Track (2013): A high-speed crime thriller built around dangerous pursuit and the consequences of being trapped inside an escalating criminal situation.
6. Calico (2023): San Bernardino County detective Beth McDade investigates a body found in the Mojave Desert while a second storyline in 1883 reveals a western mystery connected to the same location.

A practical complete-fiction route

There is no single chronology connecting every Goldberg novel. A reader can therefore treat the bibliography as a set of separate lanes.

1. Eve Ronin: read from Lost Hills through Fallen Star, then add Split Screen when it is published.
2. Sharpe and Walker: read Malibu Burning, Ashes Never Lie, and Hidden in Smoke.
3. Edison Bixby: begin with Murder by Design.
4. Ian Ludlow: read the three books from True Fiction through Fake Truth.
5. Fox and O’Hare: read the prequels if desired, then Goldberg’s five novels from The Heist through The Pursuit.
6. Television tie-ins: keep Monk and Diagnosis Murder in their respective publication orders.

What is newest in Goldberg’s catalog?

Murder by Design, published in May 2026, is Goldberg’s newest published novel as of September 10, 2026 and launches Edison Bixby.

Split Screen is the next confirmed novel and is scheduled for October 2026 as Eve Ronin Book 7.

Goldberg has also confirmed that the Eve Ronin and Sharpe and Walker characters can cross into each other’s stories, so readers following both modern series will get more from reading them broadly in publication order.

Common Lee Goldberg order questions

What is the first Eve Ronin book?

Lost Hills is Book 1 and introduces Eve at the beginning of her homicide career.

How many Eve Ronin novels are published?

Six are published through Fallen Star. Split Screen is scheduled as Book 7 for October 2026.

Do Sharpe and Walker meet Eve Ronin?

Yes. Eve and Duncan appear in the Sharpe and Walker books, particularly once homicide and arson investigations begin overlapping.

How many Monk novels did Goldberg write?

Goldberg wrote fifteen Monk novels, ending with Mr. Monk Gets Even. Hy Conrad continued the book series afterward.

How many Diagnosis Murder novels did Goldberg write?

He wrote eight, from The Silent Partner through The Last Word.

Did Goldberg write all the Fox and O’Hare books?

No. He co-wrote the first five novels and two prequel novellas with Janet Evanovich. The franchise later continued with different collaborators.

Is Murder by Design connected to Eve Ronin?

It launches Edison Bixby as a separate lead character rather than functioning as Eve Ronin Book 7.

The easiest way to keep Goldberg’s worlds straight

Do not try to force every Lee Goldberg book into one chronology. Keep Eve Ronin, Sharpe and Walker, Edison Bixby, Ian Ludlow, Charlie Willis, Monk, Diagnosis Murder, Fox and O’Hare, and the Jury books as separate series.

Within each series, use publication order. Across different series, choose whichever character or style interests you most. That preserves the important continuity without turning Goldberg’s very broad career into a reading project more complicated than the stories themselves.