Killing Game (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) [Mass Market Paperback]

Max Allan Collins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 2005 | Series: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Book 7)

The machinations of a new supervisor may have altered Gil Grissom's team of skillful CSIs, as Catherine Willows, Nick Stokes, and Warrick Brown are reassigned from the graveyard shift to the swing shift. That doesn't mean, however, that their paths will never cross. During the course of their separate investigations, the teams must unite again to investigate two distinct murders -- atrocities that are oddly aligned as they share much of the same collective evidence. Despite the different M.O.s, the CSIs are uncovering two wildly imperfect crimes that could possibly add up to an almost perfect one...

Editorial Reviews

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Chapter One

Monday, January 24, 6:30 A.M.

Los Calina nestled in the foothills at the far west end of Summerlin. Packed in north of Far Hills Avenue, just west of Desert Foothills Drive, the gated community was a relatively new addition catering to upper-middle-class dwellers of a...certain age. Such words as "senior" or "elderly" were not spoken here; and when these folks ate at a restaurant at 4:30 P.M., the reason was preference, not the savings afforded by an "Early Bird Special."

Not as trendy, nor as full of star power, as Lake Las Vegas -- its more opulent eastside counterpart -- Los Calina ("The Hills" in less romantic English) catered to older money, clients who wished to remain very private while living in something resembling luxury. Residents were mostly well-to-do retirees still able to live independently. Gardening, garbage collection, and other rudimentary services were provided or overseen by the Los Calina Association, in essence overseen by the residents themselves. For a retirement community, this made other local options -- even pleasant facilities -- seem like nursing homes without staff, at best, and tenements, at worst.

A slim but shapely woman in her early thirties, Sara Sidle -- dark hair dangling out under a black CSI baseball cap, her attractive oval face somber -- pulled the black Tahoe into the Los Calina entrance to stop at a guard shack that squatted between the IN and OUT gates. The small, mostly glass structure (about the size of a double-wide phone booth) was the architectural equivalent of the guard who lumbered out of it, sweat rings on his short-sleeve brown shirt beneath meaty arms, despite the chill and the shack's thrumming window air conditioner.

In the passenger seat next to her, Gil Grissom stared straight ahead; he might have been catatonic, but was merely absorbed in his own thoughts. Pushing fifty, his hair and trim beard touched with gray, the CSI supervisor wore his customary loose-fitting black shirt and slacks, and an identical ballcap to Sara's. Grissom had never been talkative, but since the Crime Lab's deputy director, Conrad Ecklie, had unceremoniously broken up the graveyard-shift team, Grissom had become ever more interior.

Still, Sara could tell her boss was keeping up the appearance that everything was fine, as best he could; but she was attuned enough to him to detect differences out around the edges. In fact, Sara figured she knew Grissom better than anyone else in the crime lab, with the possible exception of Catherine Willows (recently appointed swing shift supervisor, but for years, Grissom's right hand).

Sitting quietly behind Grissom was Greg Sanders, the former DNA lab rat who had just completed his final proficiency, his two-tone hair (dark brown, orangeish blond) looking more controlled these days. Slender, with a narrow, handsome face, Greg fixed his eyes on something outside the vehicle -- Sara knew that he had long since learned not to make conversation with Grissom, who on occasion still made life hard for the twenty-something former lab tech.

Nonetheless, Sara felt the young scientist -- who had taken the "new kid" mantle from her (thank God somebody finally had!) -- had already turned a corner. The glib, flirty "kid" had receded into a more serious, committed criminalist -- didn't take many nights on the streets for a CSI to develop that kind of detached, no-nonsense attitude.

In the seat behind her, the newest member of their new team -- Sofia Curtis -- also sat in silence. Studying the woman in the rearview mirror, Sara thought the attractive CSI with the long blond hair -- today pulled back in a loose ponytail -- had already shown herself to be a highly competent investigator.

But they should be getting to know one another better by now, only Sara couldn't bring herself to let down her guard. Sofia had been the acting day-shift supervisor, seen by many as the much-despised Ecklie's lap dog. When Curtis had sided with Grissom against the vitriolic Ecklie, the woman had been punished with banishment to the graveyard shift and the recently dressed-down Grissom team.

That should have endeared Curtis to Sara. And, yet, try as she might, Sara couldn't help but wonder if they might not have a spy in their midst...

Then, shaking her head at her own (probably ridiculous) paranoia, Sara turned toward the square-headed, blunt-featured guard, who awaited like a carhop at her window, which she powered down.

"Can I help you?" the guard asked, and somehow she managed not to request a milkshake.

Not that the fiftyish guard didn't look properly official, clipboard at the ready, EVERETT stenciled on the nameplate pinned to one side of his brown uniform shirt, the other bearing a silver badge with a pressed-in logo -- HOME SURE SECURITY.

She lifted her laminated ID on its necklace for his inspection. "Crime lab."

"Oh." His face saddened. "You must be here for Mrs. Salfer..."

She nodded.

"Pity. Nice lady."

Leaning over toward Sara, close enough for her to get a whiff of the scent of his soap, Grissom asked the guard, "Have you been here all night, Mr. Everett?"

"Nope," the guard said, shaking a concrete-block head that seemed to swivel on his shoulders without benefit of a neck. "Jack, the night guy, he called in sick -- flu. Going around, cold weather maybe."

"When did you come in, Mr. Everett?"

"About five."

Sara checked her watch -- six-thirty. Why all these cases seemed to fall toward the end of shift was a bigger mystery than most of the crimes themselves.

Grissom was asking, "And who was here overnight?"

The guard looked at the shack like the answer might lie inside.

Grissom frowned. "Don't you know, Mr. Everett?"

He shook the blocky head. "Place was empty when I got here; we been short-handed. Office called me to come in early, so I did -- don't know what the problem was, if any. Could be nobody was out here from eleven last night till I come on."

"The 'office' called you?" Sara asked. "What office is that?"

He thumped his badge with a forefinger. "Home Sure. We have the contract for security here at Los Calina."

Grissom's smile was faint. "How long do you anticipate holding onto that contract?"

The guard sighed. "Yeah, I know. No one in the guard shack, and here we have a ...a damn murder, or something. Hell of a thing."

"Isn't it?" Grissom said pleasantly. "Thank you, Mr. Everett."

And the CSI supervisor sat back, eyes forward, in a manner that told Sara it was time to move on.

Sara said to the guard, "Thank you, sir," and powered up the window.

Giving them a nod, the guard backed away, then returned to his shack; you could almost see the sweat rings growing, despite the "cold" that was giving everybody the flu.

After a moment, the gate slid open, and Sara eased the SUV through, rolling twenty feet to a stop sign at a T-intersection. Houses went off in each direction, side streets veining to God only knew where.

"Which way to Arroyo Court?" she asked Grissom.

Sofia leaned forward. "Left here, then take the first right; then, when you can, another left."

"You've been here before?" Grissom asked without looking back.

"Just a couple months ago," Sofia said. "I did a seminar on identity theft for the residents. That was at the main office building. Which is the other way, to the right; but they showed me around while I was here."

"You're good," Sara admitted with a smile.

Sofia said, "Call it a gift for street names."

The streets in question wound past lines of stucco houses, both one- and two-story, all looking new and fronted by a lush carpet of green grass -- a real rarity in these drought-stricken days.

Sofia's directions, not surprisingly, turned out to be right on the money, and they were soon parked in front of a large, two-story tile-roof stucco, with a two-car garage attached on the left; and the lawn looked every bit as well-maintained and manicured as the others around it. This struck Sara as decadent, in an oddly mundane way.

Two cars had beat them here: an LVPD squad in front of the Tahoe, and Brass's familiar Taurus, parked in the wrong direction on the other side of the street. A blue-and-white golf cart -- a clear plastic covering protecting it from the rain, and the Home Sure Security logo painted on the front -- was nosed in at an angle, not quite pulled into the driveway, and an ambulance in the driveway itself. Right now the EMTs were packing up their gear and loading it back into the ambulance -- obviously in no hurry.

Sara hated seeing the defeat on their faces. She'd talked to enough of these men and women, over the years, to know that they were well aware they couldn't save every one on each call; but that didn't stop them from trying...or from feeling like shit when death won another one.

Already in strictly-business mode, Grissom said, "Big house."

"Evidently," Sara said, " 'retired' doesn't mean you have to downsize."

"Not in Los Calina," Sofia said.

They looked at her.

She smiled and shrugged. "Residents here run the full gamut -- from wealthy to very wealthy."

"What if you're wealthier than that?" Greg asked, his eyes full of the impressive home. "Say -- stinking rich?"

"You live at Lake Las Vegas," the two women said simultaneously.

They laughed, and Sofia said, "Bread and butter," and Sara enjoyed the brief bonding, while Grissom looked at them like they were at least mildly mad.

Recovering her sanity, Sara asked, "What do we know about this?"

"Four-ninteen," Grissom said. "Probably a four-twenty, if the EMTs are right..."

Four-nineteen meant a dead body, four-twenty a homicide. If you were the victim, Sara thought, you were having a bad day, either way.

Grissom was saying, "According to Brass, the EMTs think she may have been strangled."

"She?" Sofia asked.

"Mrs. Grace Salfer," Grissom said without referring to his notebook. "Owner of the home."

Sara had a feeling Sofia was wondering why Grissom had waited until they'd got here to sh...

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Star; First Edition edition (October 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743496647
• ISBN-13: 978-0743496643
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #889,297 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Max Allan Collins is a New York Times bestselling author of original mysteries, a Shamus award winner and an experienced author of movie adaptions and tie-in novels. His graphic novel ROAD TO PERDITION was made into a major motion picture by Tom Hank's production company, Playtone.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as strong as you'd hope, November 21, 2005

By 

J. Grant "Language Arts Teacher and Gamer on ... (Central KY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Killing Game (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) (Mass Market Paperback)

Any fan of CSI will like this series of novels, but with this one, you will be a little dissapointed. The last couple of novels were very strong, but this one puts the plot on the backburner and works more on character development. The way Collins describes the characters, their thoughts, and their attitudes is dead-on with the characters we've grown to love from the show. The plot, about two seemingly unrelated murders, is nothing innovative or ground breaking, but is very indicative of what you see on the show. The only problem I have is that the show CSI is about forensic detective work and it seems as though the forensics aren't in play all that much in this novel.

The plot is very by the numbers and I'm sure by the end of the book most people will have figured out who did it. Check it out if you're a CSI fan, but if this is your first CSI novel, you may want to go back and read Binding Ties instead.

4.0 out of 5 stars CSI: Killing Game, September 29, 2008

By 

Laura - See all my reviews

This review is from: Killing Game (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) (Mass Market Paperback)

I have been a fan of CSI for about three years now and got into reading the books by Max Allan Collins in December of last year. The books follow the timeline of the television show but are understandably behind what is happening there. For instance, Killing Game is set in the time when Grissom's team had been broken up by Ecklie and Grissom was still head of the graveyard shift and had Sara, Greg and Sophia reporting to him and Catherine had become head of the swing shift and had Warrick and Nick reporting to her.

I found Killing Game to be very compelling and will just say that if you are a fan of the show, you will enjoy the read.

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Quick CSI-Based Read, May 14, 2007

By 

Jennifer Wardrip (Bloomington, Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Killing Game (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) (Mass Market Paperback)

KILLING GAME is another enjoyable CSI story, although I found the actual plot to be a bit too predictable for my taste. However, I finished this story in a day, and was happy with the advanced character-development that this particular story held. If you enjoy CSI as much as I do, you won't be disappointed in reading these serialized novels.