A Writer's Life

Monk Galley Giveaway

I have two extra, bound galleys for MR. MONK GOES TO GERMANY which I will be giving away at random.

Here's the deal...post a review of your favorite MONK novel on Amazon and send me a copy of it by June 1st at:  lee AT Leegoldberg DOT com.

I will put the names into a hat and select two winners at random to receive a signed galley. Please be sure to include your snail mail address in the email. Winners will be announced here.

Sad News

Stanley Kamel, who portrayed Dr. Kroger on MONK, died yesterday of a heart attack. Besides being a very talented and versatile actor, he was also a very nice man. I worked with him long before MONK on an episode of the early 90s FOX series LIKELY SUSPECTS. He played a restaurant owner with an indecipherable accent. Much to my delight, when I met him again over a decade later at a MONK rap party, he not only remembered the LIKELY SUSPECTS role...he even remembered his lines! He will be missed.

(That's Stanley with my daughter Maddie at last year's wrap party).

I Should Go Out of Town More Often...

I've been on a Spring Break road trip with my family through California, and wireless access hasn't always been available or reasonably priced...so it has taken me a few days to discover all the nice things that Bill Crider had to say about MR. MONK IN OUTER SPACE. He said, in part:

I've never seen so much as a single scene from the television series. So why do I enjoy Lee Goldberg's books about the character so much? Well, let's see. They're funny, they're well-written, they're carefully plotted, and they're poignant. They probably have other good qualities, too, but those should do for starters.

Thanks so much, Bill!

Mr. Monk and the Out-of-This-World Review

Okay, that's an exaggeration, but James Reasoner gave MR. MONK IN OUTER SPACE a very kind review on his blog today. He said, in part:

[...] his Monk novels are some of the most consistently entertaining mysteries to be found these days. They’re tightly plotted, laugh-out-loud funny, and the voices of the various characters are as pitch perfect as they can be.

[...]Regular readers of Lee’s blog will recognize where some of this material comes from, but he’s not content just to poke affectionate fun at the worlds of fandom and cult TV series. The plot turns out to be considerably more intricate than that, and Monk has to have the help of his brother Ambrose to sort it all out.

Thanks, James. Speaking of Mr. Reasoner, you may remember that he recently lost his home -- and his everything he owned -- in a wildfire. In addition to reconstructing his library, he's trying to recover copies of the books that he's written. Here's a list of what he's looking for.  You can also find it on Amazon. If you can help him, I know he'd appreciate it.

Mr. Monk and the Two Nice Reviews

There are two more nice reviews for MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSISTANTS out this week in the blogosphere. Barry Ergang of Futures Magazine said, in part:

This is the fourth of Lee Goldberg’s Monk novels that I’ve read. I’ve enjoyed all of them, but this one is the best to date, in no small measure because of its fairly-clued solution. The clue, I might point out, is kept in front of the reader throughout the book, but is nevertheless elusive—a sign of excellent authorial misdirection. Recommended without reservations.

Debra Hamel at SpikeBooks and at BookBlog says, in part:

I love this series. Sure, Monk is an unrealistic character, and some of his feats prove a little harder to swallow than others. But they’re good light mysteries, and more intricate than you’d expect. (This one, in fact, was so intricate that it became a little confusing at the end.) What makes the books shine, however, is Monk’s dialogue, which is spot on and often hilarious.

Thanks Barry and Debra!

Mr. Monk Goes to Germany Cover

Here's the final front cover of MR. MONK GOES TO GERMANY, which comes out in July. It's virtually the same picture of Monk that's on the cover of MR. MONK IS MISERABLE but with a different backdrop. (You can click on the photo for a larger image).

Mr. Monk is Miserable cover

Here's the first version of the dust jacket for MR. MONK IS MISERABLE, which comes out next fall. (You can click on the image for a larger view).

1,282,442 Words (That's Almost as Much as James Reasoner Writes in a Month)

The Press-Enterprise reports that 11-year-old Nicholas Barry of Riverside, California has read 1,282,442 words so far since August, quite an achievement...and a nice, even number that Adrian Monk would appreciate. So I guess it's no surprise that Nicholas counts the Monk books among his favorites:

Nicholas, a Riverside resident, said he reads so much because he enjoys it.

"I love the challenge. I don't do it for the prizes," he said.

Some of Nicholas's favorite books are the "Star Wars" series by Timothy Zahn and the "Monk" series by Lee Goldberg. The Accelerated Reader program lets students take quizzes on the books they enjoy and allows them to read an assortment of books which benefits the students, Nicholas said.

"It inspires kids to read. They get to read what they want," he said.

Congratulations, Nicholas!

Mr. Monk and the Gumshoe

The Gumshoe Review has given MR. MONK IN OUTER SPACE a nice review.  They say, in part:

Mr. Monk in Outer Space is another typically well-crafted effort from Lee Goldberg. The scenes flow seamlessly and quickly, the dialogue is always fun, and while some of the situations frankly stretch the limits of believability, there is some indefinable quality to Goldberg's writing that makes us believe it anyway. There may be some readers who will say that writing novels based on a television series is easier than conventional fiction, because the readers will already have a sense of the characters from having watched the program. But this reviewer is not a watcher of television, and has never seen a Monk program. Yet the characters still leap off the page as clearly defined people, some of them from real life, but more often than not clever caricatures.

Thank you, Gumshoe!

Mr. Monk and the Parallel Universe

I thought the two-part MONK season finale was great, but it points out one of the pitfalls of writing a tie-in series while the TV show that it is based on is still in production. It means that there are going to be some continuity miss-matches between the TV series and the books...and there's nothing that can be done about it.

I finished my book MR. MONK GOES TO GERMANY back in October 2007 and it will be published in July 2008. In between that time, the MONK writers wrote, produced and broadcast the season finale. I am now well into writing MR. MONK IS MISERABLE, which comes out next winter...by the time I deliver that manuscript, the MONK writers will have just begun writing the season seven scripts. You can see the problem.

Andy Breckman, the creator and executive producer of MONK, knows in advance what I will be writing and approves the storylines. But I certainly don't expect him or his staff to feel creatively bound to any of the events or details that I create in my books. The show comes first. That said, there are bound to be diehard fans who expect strict continuity between the books and the TV series ...and they are going to stumble over a few miss-matches.

Both my book and the finale, "Mr. Monk is on the Run," involve Monk encountering a man with six fingers on one hand. That's actually okay. A fan could assume that my book takes place before the events in the season finale. In fact, it only reinforces Monk's attitude towards the "second" man with 11 fingers that he meets.  The book and the episode would fit together pretty well chronologically, "factually," and even emotionally, if not for the last scene of the two-parter.

Oh well.

I have a disclaimer in my books that warns readers that, while I try hard to stay close to the continuity of the show, the long lead time of the books makes that next to impossible (an entire season is produced between when I turn in the book and when it comes out).

I read all the scripts and I talk to Andy about what he has in mind for the season ahead, but even so, continuity problems are bound to happen. Hypothetically, for example, Sharona may come back on the show some day and the story they come up with may have nothing to do with MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSISTANTS (and, unless they adapt the book, won't acknowledge those events at all).

I don't obsess about the miss-matches and neither does Andy. He once said to me that, in his mind, the Monk TV series and the Monk books are separate entities...the same characters in parallel universes...and while they are consistent with one another most of the time, there are bound to be some differences now and then.

There's the TV shows and there are the books. They are not one in the same.  He is okay with that and so am I. I hope that most of the fans will be, too.