On October 20th, I’ll be releasing a little something special: an all-new short story that is actually fairly long — 60 pages! — which you’ll be able to buy it as both an ebook and a paperback. It’s called “Second Responder,” and like much of my work, it’s, uhm, well…let’s see what the jacket copy says:

From Tod Goldberg, the award-winning author of Gangsterland and Only Way Out, comes a feral crime story about a washed‑up golf hustler who keeps mistaking disaster for opportunity. Curt Hollas comes back to Palm Springs for his father’s funeral and ends up getting sucked back into the family business: a luxury hospice facility that treats the dying like VIPs and bills them accordingly. His job? Move clients, keep them calm, avoid asking questions that make his uncle nervous, and stay the hell out of the way. Which is how Curt immediately lands in the middle of a dead billionaire, a blackmailing security guard, a traumatized bird, and a nurse who’s not great with boundaries. Curt’s trying to be responsible. It’s not going well. Second Responder is dark, hilarious, morally sideways, and steeped in the kind of desert trouble that starts off bad…and gets much, much worse.

The story has been percolating in my head for a long time, ever since I was seated beside the police chief of a small town at a luncheon and asked him, “How come we don’t hear much about second responders?” He found it amusing…and then told me some things. And then a few years later, I wrote this story…and now you can read a sample right here. 

To order the full story, click here.