Book Review: Calico by Lee Goldberg

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Good characters, a fun genre combination (once I wrapped me head around that)

Cons: The book is a little unfocused and suffers for it

The Bottom Line:

A strange accident

A genre twisting story

Tries to do too much

A Shock and Some Flaws

Lee Goldberg is pretty much an auto buy for me.  Typically, I enjoy his stories and the characters he creates.  So, when I spotted Calico, I added it to my TBR pile.  Sadly, it wasn’t as good as I expected.

Beth McDade is a former LAPD cop who has moved to Barstow, California, since it is the only place that will hire her after she lost her job in Los Angeles due to a scandal.  The large area and the lack of resources make her job tougher, and she is still trying to deal with what happened to her in LA.

One night, Beth is called to the scene of a horrific accident.  A couple in a motorhome have run over a transient.  However, the autopsy turns up some weird findings.  And no one seems to know who he is.  Can Beth figure out what is going on?

I was not aware going into the book that this is a genre mashup.  It’s part Police Procedural, part Science Fiction, and part Western.  When I first realized the Science Fiction part, I was initially upset, but I kept reading, and soon I was on board with that twist to the story.

We get the story in two timelines, one in the present day and one in the past.  For the most part, this worked and I found myself pulled into both stories.  I actually enjoyed seeing how the past was coming into play in the present.

This gave us two sets of characters, and, for the most part, that worked as well.  It did take me a little while to warm up to Beth, but I felt for some of the other characters right away.  It’s a hard balance with this many characters, and I appreciate the care that was spent to make sure we care about the story.

Unfortunately, I feel like there was too much story for the book.  There’s a subplot in the present day that never really goes anywhere (I kept expecting it to), and the storyline in the past sometimes gives us some vignettes that wrap up with exposition.  And the last story in the past seemed pointless.  The last couple of chapters feel like exposition that could have been summarized, ironically, to let things play out in other places.

Being a Lee Goldberg book, I was expecting a bit more language and sex than I would typically read.  Honestly, the first chapter was a bit raw, and it made it a little harder to get into the book for me.  As long as you know that going in, you should be okay.

A bit more focus on the story that he wanted to tell would have helped me truly enjoy Calico.  I appreciate the attempts to blend the genres, but the storytelling could have been better.

NOTE: I received an ARC of this book.