Friday, November 6, 2015

Book Review: Cult Following (CSI: Miami) by Donn Cortez



I’m an unashamed fan of CSI: Miami, with David Caruso has the unflappable and suave Detective Horatio Caine, so when I discovered the string of CSI: Miami novels – first written by Max Allan Collins and, later, by Donn Cortez – on Amazon, I snapped them up immediately. And wasn't disappointed.

Like Collins before him, Cortez has clearly studied the show and it’s characterisations well, to the point where you can definitely imagine Caruso, red hair perfect and sunglasses covering his eyes, speaking the words on the pages. Same goes for the other characters, Eric Delko, Frank Tripp, Calleigh Duquesne, Alexx Woods, and Ryan Wolfe. All the regulars are there, including Caine’s sometime love interest Yelina Salas, and some of the familiar lab techs, too.

Ultimately, these television tie-in novels only work when the characters have a smooth transition from screen to page, and that’s the case in this instance. Caine and his group of CSIs must solve the murder of a man connected to a lifestyle cult who appears to have been electrocuted whilst using the toilet. Of course, things aren’t always as they seem, and there are a few plot twists before the final showdown – rocket science, drugs, and more.

Suffice to say, Caine and the more-than-slightly-creep Doctor Sinhurma. In a book or on the screen, I love it when there’s a really demented adversary for Horatio Caine. The best of that character s when he’s seriously (and sometimes personally) challenged, and that’s definitely the case here.

It probably goes without saying that you’ll get more out of Cult Following (and all the other CSI: Miami books, for that matter) if you like the show, but, even so, this was a good mystery with plenty of the procedural stuff that you get when you watch any given CSI: show, and a satisfying ending.

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