Ticket 2 Ride

Lee Goldberg has become one of my favorite mystery writers. In his latest book, Murder By Design (2026, Thomas & Mercer), he introduces us to two new characters, Edison Bixby and Wally Nash, a most unlikely pairing, who solve cases for a large insurance company.

At first, I thought the setup sounded a bit close to the Monk TV character, and while the relationship of the two characters has a vague similarity to Monk and his assistant, Bixby and Nash have their own personality challenges and go about business in a different style than the Monk series. Goldberg knows the Monk series quite well since he’s written a number of Monk books, and several episodes of the TV series, but by no means is Murder By Design a ripoff of Monk, anymore than Bixby and Nash are derivative of Holmes and Watson.

Now that the Monk disclaimer is out of the way, let’s talk about Murder By Design. The book is told through the Nash character’s eyes, which is not unusual for a gumshoe story. The tone of this book is light, the banter between the characters is crisp and witty, and you’ll either be drawn into the Bixby and Nash oddball relationship right away or you won’t. Goldberg knows how to tell an effective police procedural story, which he’s done many times in his books and TV scripts, but here his writing is not quite a linear path. I won’t divulge much of the story, but you’ll need to read to the end to appreciate the different moving pieces of what might be Goldberg’s best book.

Bixby is ungodly wealthy so the fact that a near death on the job injury forced his retirement from the LAPD, he lives in style. He has a 100 percent record solving cases which makes him valuable to a global insurance company, but his injury has left him spouting insensitive comments to other people (a Tourette syndrome type mental condition), which is a liability to his employer. Enter Wally Nash, a struggling actor, who needs this job (which comes with room & board) and hopes to last longer than other Bixby assistants.

Can the design of an object guide human behavior? Remember a Columbo episode where an advertising expert (Robert Culp) used subliminal images in a film to entice a client to leave the screening room to visit a water fountain where he was shot by the ad man who was waiting to murder him? The design of the film aided in the murder, so the answer to the question is yes.

The cases that Bixby and Nash work in Murder By Design certainly raise the question about complicity in murder, and of whether characters are who they appear. What we see, and what we think we know, can be quite suspect. Bixby and Nash seem to be quirky and wisecracking characters in a lightweight book, but you won’t think so by the end. Goldberg lists the source materials used or referenced in developing the story lines in the book, and actual locations in the L.A. area that influenced creating the fanciful and colorful backdrop used for Bixby’s Swiss Family Robinson style estate.

The witty dialogue may be a turnoff for those expecting one of Goldberg’s other series.

“I gestured to the gun I could see peeking out from under his open jacket. “What about your iron?”

“You mean my gun?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

“This isn’t 1880. I’ll leave it and my holster in the gun safe in the trunk.”

“You don’t want to get into trouble with Johnny Law.”

“That’s right,” he said. “I’ve got to get you a new slang dictionary.”

Goldberg sneaks in a few references to literary cop Harry Bosch, “either everyone matters or no one matters” and a mention of the Bosch streaming series. He also makes reference to controversial former Nixon and Ford agriculture secretary Earl Butz, who burned his career by making a racist joke and income tax evasion, but somehow remained a popular figure in the agriculture world. I, for one, appreciate the cultural references, and probably missed others.

I certainly hope that Bixby and Nash become a series and we get more mysteries for them to solve. Perhaps this book could become the basis for a streaming series? Michael Connelly and Harlan Cobin move over and make room for Bixby & Nash.