Lee Goldberg

Lee Goldberg is an American novelist, screenwriter, and television producer whose books combine crime plotting with an insider's feel for Los Angeles. His television work includes Monk, and he later co-founded Brash Books while continuing several novel series. Watch Me Die follows Harvey Mapes, a Los Angeles security guard whose understanding of private investigation comes largely from books and television. When he agrees to follow a resident's unfaithful husband, the routine favor opens into a larger inquiry and forces Harvey to test imitation against judgment. Goldberg uses the premise both as suspense and as a wry examination of genre expectations: Harvey knows the moves of fictional detectives before he understands their real cost. The novel was first published as The Man with the Iron-On Badge, then revised and reissued under its current name. Watch Me Die stands outside Goldberg's better-known Monk, Eve Ronin, and Ian Ludlow series, yet shares their interest in capable outsiders learning how stories and investigations shape one another.