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Book Review By Debbie
CSI: Sin City by Max Allan Collins

When Lynn Pierce didn't show up at her friend's house as promised, Millie Blair knew that something was wrong. And when Millie listened to the tape that Lynn had placed in her safekeeping, she convinced her husband to go with her to report that Lynn was missing. Ordinarily, the police would not investigate a missing persons report when that person had only been missing for 7 hours, but after listening to the tape, where Lynn's husband Owen threatened to murder her and cut her up into little pieces, Grissom took the whole team out to investigate Lynn's house. When that search turned up nothing, the CSI team had no choice but to back off, even though they could all sense that Lynn was dead and not just on vacation as her husband claimed.

Later that night, Grissom sent Catherine Willows and Sara Sidle to Dream Dolls, one of the strip clubs where Catherine used to work, to investigate a murder. Catherine did not want to be reminded of that time her life and could do without Sara's fascination with her previous career, but Grissom was right in that Catherine knew the world better than any of the other CSIs. The dead stripper was named Jenna Patrick and she was strangled with some electrical wire. The security videos showed that Jenna took a patron in a Lipton construction jacket, beard and dark glasses into the back room to perform a private lap dance - and then she died. All of the clues pointed to Jenna's sometimes violent boyfriend, Ray Lipton, who wanted Jenna to quit stripping, but Catherine's gut told her that there was more to the murder than was obvious...

Meanwhile, Warrick & Nick discovered Lynn Pierce's car at the airport, but it was so clean that it looked like it came off of a dealership floor. However, after careful examination, they discovered some blood and shattered glass that led them to believe Lynn's body was transported in her own car. When a piece of a woman's body was found floating in Lake Mead, Grissom knew that they had found a piece of Lynn Pierce. The husband had something to do with it, but they couldn't find any evidence at the Pierce's to support Grissom's theory. But the more Grissom, Warrick & Nick got to know Owen Pierce, the more determined they were to nail him - and to find the evidence that he was a lot more involved in his wife's disappearance than he claimed...

This is the second book in the CSI series written by Max Collins and it was just fabulous! I love that Collins stays so true to the characters' personalities from the TV show so you feel that you are actually watching a CSI episode instead of reading a book written about it. In fact, I feel that I am learning more about the characters because you can be so much more descriptive in a book when you are describing motivations and personality traits. Collins is very detailed in his descriptions and I can visualize exactly how they would shoot the episode for TV. The mysteries were great and dealt with exactly the kind of plots that would happen in the regular series. If you enjoy the TV series, you should love these books!


Plot & Themes
Tone of story - very upbeat
How difficult to spot villain? - Somewhat obvious
Time/era of story:
Misc. Murder Plotlets - Big focus on forensic evidence - Big focus on autopsies
What % of story relates directly to the mystery, not the subplot? - 60%
Special suspect? - relative
Murder of certain profession?
Kind of investigator
Kid or adult book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Any non-mystery subplot?
descript. of violence and chases - 20 %
Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 30 %
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 20 %
How society works & physical descript. (people, objects, places) - 30 %
Crime Thriller Yes
Murder Mystery (killer unknown) Yes

Main Character
Gender - Male
Profession/status:
Age: - 20's-30's
Ethnicity/Race
Unusual characteristics:

Main Adversary
Identity: - Male
Age: - 40's-50's
Profession/status:
Motive of antagonist - power
How sensitive is this character?
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters

Setting
United States Yes
The US: - West
City? Yes

Writing Style
Accounts of torture and death? - very gorey descriptions deaths/dead bodies
Unusual forms of death - asphyxiation - decapitated - perforation--bullets
Unusual form of death? Yes
Amount of dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
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