Pay or Play

October 1, 2021
In his third outing, stuff-averse ex-LAPD detective Charlie Waldo is stuck with two cases he also doesn't want. Drug trafficker Don Q, who's troubled Waldo's sleep before, wants to know who the John Doe fished from a city fountain was and how he died. (And no, he's not saying why he needs to know.) Waldo's not interested, but Don Q makes him an offer he can't refuse. So, in her own way, does his lover, private eye Lorena Nascimento, whose price for letting Waldo say he's working for her so he can dig up information on the dead man everyone knew as the Professor is to help manage her latest client, foulmouthed TV judge Ida Mudge, who wants Lorena and her hapless operatives to dig up all the dirt they can on Immanuel Nickerson, the ex-lover who served as Mudge's Bailiff Man until his contract wasn't renewed and he filed suit for sexual harassment, and the four other men who've joined the suit. The first mystery isn't interesting enough to be worth all the frustration, but the second, which eventually leads Waldo to reopen the case of Anthony Branch, a long-dead college friend of both Mudge and her high-powered lawyer, Fontella Davis, produces a steady stream of backstory complications, amusing episodes, and climactic surprises. A special highlight comes when Waldo's determination not to own more than 100 objects is sorely tested: He has to come up with seven things to jettison on the spot in order to buy a six-pack of beer for Pete Conady, the former LAPD colleague whose help he sorely needs. Who needs 101 possessions when you've got Waldo's savvy, grit, and luck?

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October 11, 2021
In Gould’s lively third mystery featuring former L.A. police detective Charlie Waldo (after 2019’s Below the Line), Lorena, Waldo’s clever and capable girlfriend, coaxes him into joining her detective agency. His first case involves Judge Ida Mudge, who displays her “magisterial badassery” on her mega popular courtroom reality show. Now in negotiations with a first-run syndicator offering her $1 million a day for her show, Mudge is being blackmailed over an incident that occurred 35 years earlier: the presumed fraternity hazing death of a fellow student. Proclaiming her innocence, Mudge orders Waldo to find out the truth. Meanwhile, Don Q, a novel-reading gangster whose crimes “ranged from cold-blooded murder to influencing private-school admissions,” demands that Waldo discover the identity of a homeless man found dead at a Sherman Oaks mini-mall and then locate the dead man’s dog. With two difficult clients and relations with Lorena teetering toward collapse, Waldo remains focused—as ever—on doing the right thing. Gould pithily slips in loads of relevant details about homelessness, consumerism, and waste on the way to the satisfying ending. Readers will want to see a lot more of the obsessively virtuous Waldo. Agent: Jay Mandel, WME.

November 1, 2021
Ever hire a lawyer and hope he'll lose? Or a detective, and hope he won't solve the case? That's the oblique puzzle at the core of this classy detective story. At first blush, ex- L.A.cop Charlie Waldo seems as hard to figure out as the case itself. Punishing himself for police work that got an innocent man killed, Charlie has turned environmentalist. He bicycles to interviews and won't eat ice cream served in a paper cup. Distraction comes when hugely popular TV judge Ida Mudge--a Judge Judy on steroids--hires Charlie to discredit a group suing her for sexual harassment. Digging, Charlie comes upon a decades-old frat-rat death. Was it maybe murder? And was Ida maybe involved? And just what might it have to do with this harassment business? Gould brings his story along in smart, professionally smooth prose that's a joy to read. Like a master entertainer, he knows when to stop for comedy relief, which comes in the form of Don Q, a drug lord with failed literary ambitions. Nobody wants his Beowulf-like epic poem. ""Gotta be chick lit or YA,"" he broods bitterly.

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