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BOOK
CSI: Miami
Heat Wave

Author: Max Allan Collins
Pocket Books
RRP £6.99, US $6.99, Cdn $10.50
ISBN 0 7434 9211 0
Available 05 July 2004


Crime boss Kurt Wallace was fighting to hold his vast crime empire together - until a few well-placed bullets ended the struggle. As a host of dangerous "business interests" move in to seize control of Wallace's piece of the Miami underworld, Caine's CSIs must piece together the evidence to discover who was responsible for the crime that all Miami had motive to commit...

Heat Wave is an extremely well plotted and written story. Fans of CSI: Miami will recognise the characters immediately - a skill that doesn't always come across when a writer tackles a book based on characters we already know.

It would have been interesting to know how much of the legwork was actually undertaken by Max Allan Collins's "assistant" Matthew Clemens. From Collins's "Author's Note" it would appear that Clemens actually came up with the main story, and forensic angle and Collins knocked out the lumps and produced Heat Wave. So was Collins merely an editor for Clemens work? Or did Clemens just throw some ideas in Collins's direction?

From the way I read it, Clemens is the real author of this novel, but Collins is a bigger crowd puller, and so it made better commercial sense to slap his name on the front - although I could be wrong.

But, at the end of the day what you have is a well researched and executed narrative. While I doubt that it would have made a good TV episode, as a book it has everything going for it.

A good read that won't disappoint CSI: Miami fans.

Pete Boomer

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