‘Malibu Burning‘, the first book in Lee Goldberg’s new series about Sharpe and Walker two arson investigators in LA, is slick, fast, clever and funny.

I’m fascinated by Lee Goldberg’s ability to start with a small detail from real life in LA and then spin an ingenious plot, populate it with engaging, larger-than-life characters and then keep the pace taut and the tone light.

In ‘Malibu Burning’, the small detail he picks up on is that LA uses convicts as volunteer firefighters, fighting the endless wildfires that burn through the canyon forests. It seemed to have sparked the question: What would a really smart criminal do with the knowledge and experience he’d gained fighting those fires? The answer surprised and delighted me.

The plot is a heist story, told from the perspective of the criminals trying to pull off the heist and the arson investigators trying to figure out what’s going on. It feels like ‘White Collar’ meets ‘Mission Impossible’.

The book has three larger-than-life characters in it. My favourite was Danny Cole: a clever, charismatic conman who is, apart from conning people and stealing things, a nice guy. His brains, imagination and irrepressible ambition drive most of the story.

My least favourite was Andrew Walker, a stetson-wearing US Marshal turned arson investigator and self-proclaimed cowboy. He loves the risk and the hunt and the person he’s hunting is Danny Cole. Walker opens the book with a dramatic reveal that what the FBI and the DEA think is a money laundering takedown is actually a long con by Danny Cole. The chaos that followed was a lot of fun and set up the rest of the book but it didn’t stop me thinking that Walker was an ass.

The third character is Walter Sharpe, the lugubrious, slightly maverick, obsessively detailed senior arson investigator to whom Walker is assigned when he transfers to arson investigation as a rookie. I enjoyed watching Walker having to run fast to keep up with Sharpe and how hard he had to try to win the man’s respect.

Having Walker as a rookie arson investigator allowed him to ask all the dumb questions about how fires get started and how they spread, avoiding clumsy info-dumping and often adding a bit of humour.

The plot is structured so that my curiosity was constantly engaged. The action split not just between Cole’s view and Sharpe and Walker’s view but by moving back and forth along timelines. It gave me time to get to know the characters while keeping me moving forward because I knew that Cole was planning something big and daring and complicated but I didn’t know what or why.

I’m not going to reveal the what or the why here. Read the book and you’ll have a great time getting to the answers to those questions.

I will say that, for most of the book, I found myself wanting Cole to win and for Walker to get close enough to watch him escape but not close enough to catch him. A lot of the tension came from the fact that I couldn’t see how that outcome could be achieved.

The ending was everything I could have hoped for and more. Explosive, action-packed, surprising and clever and had me cheering and being a little in awe of Lee Goldberg’s ingenuity.

Even though I liked Cole better than Sharpe and Walker, they have potential as partners and I’ll be there for the next book in the series.