Csi: New York: Four Walls

DeCandido continues to weave stories and portray the characters that are consistent with the TV show, so if you like the show, you'll like the books, including this one. "Four Walls" is, in my opinion, equivalent to one of the better episodes -- about an A- or B+ if you grade the episodes on a curve.

This book reads exactly like a television episode, with two important and WONderful differences: It's chock full of lovely narration and buckets of backstory, two things missing from any episode you might watch, simply because there isn't enough time. As many of us already know, in the Star Trek universe, Keith is King of the backstory, and this CSI novel is no different in that respect. We are privvy to the fears and dreams of the main characters we know and love, and what's more, Keith also takes us inside the minds of the criminals, giving us information unknown to the detectives and CSI's. The story, just like many of the episodes, centers around two wildly disparate crime scenes, one in a prison and one in a bakery, and in the end, the crimes are solved using a number of cool techniques, clever thinking, and plain old dumb luck. Add to that Stella Bonasera's "fifty-megawatt smile" (which can only be fully appreciated by actually watching Melina Kanakaredes deliver it on the show) and honest-to-God Italian cannoli, and, boom, you've got yourself a weeener.