Second Responder

by Tod Goldberg

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 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.

Praise for Tod Goldberg

“There are echoes in this book of Carl Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard, Quentin Tarantino and Donald Westlake, but Mr. Goldberg is master of his own gonzo mix.” Wall Street Journal

“Tod Goldberg writes like a skilled knifeman—he knows how to slice and how to stab, how to bleed you out fast or bleed you out slow.” Jordan Harper

“The most improbable and remarkable series of mob fiction ever written.” Los Angeles Times

“Goldberg’s talent and compassion extends dignity even to the most fucked-up and misbegotten lives.” Daniel Woodrell

“A crime novel that further cements Goldberg’s reputation as an heir to Leonard or Hiaasen even as he broadens and amplifies his own endearingly sardonic vision of the West.” Alta

61 pages, Paperback

Published September 28, 2026

About the author

Tod Goldberg is the New York Times bestselling author of sixteen books of fiction, including Only Way Out, currently a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the acclaimed Gangsterland quartet: Gangsterland, a finalist for the Hammett Prize; Gangster Nation; The Low Desert, a Southwest Book of the Year; and Gangsters Don’t Die, an Amazon Best Book of 2023 as well as a Southwest Book of the Year. Other works include The House of Secrets, which he co-authored with Brad Meltzer, and Living Dead Girl, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His short fiction and essays have been anthologized widely, including in Best American Mystery & Suspense and Best American Essays, and appear regularly in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and Alta. Tod Goldberg is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside, where founded and directs the Low Residency MFA program in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts.