Freezer Burn: A C.S.U. Investigation

Dublin's Freezer Burn was a remarkable forensics masterpiece. I was stumped many times but Madison Cross, the fearless, highly intelligent technician, led me through many weird cases to a satisfying climax. I'm declaring Dublin the best forensics writer I've ever read. Okay, so where' the next one?

A string of brutal murders break out around Philly, and Madison Cross finds herself at the scene of them all. She is even sent out of her jurisdiction to help Chief Boone investigate a gang related shoot-out at a gas station. As the dead bodies pile up at the ME and the pieces of the puzzle are pulled together, Madison finds out that this is more than just a bunch unrelated murders. They are somehow connected, and all of them keep adding up. Each one as gruesome and shocking as the last. Thank you sir can I have another? This book totally makes all those crime scene investigation shows look like chumps! It pulled me in from the very first page, and it kept getting better. D.H. Dublin has woven together a story with so many twists and turns I wasn't sure where it would end up. I'm really impressed at the amount of research that must have gone into this book, and I give him a world of praise for doing so. You can tell that every single piece was well thought out, with every clue adding to the suspense and helping lead Madison to the killer. I also found out that there are two in the series before Freezer Burn which is fantastic. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of them as well!

Freezer Burn, the third installment in the C.S.U. Investigation series, leaves little doubt that D.H. Dublin (nom de plume of Jon McGoran) has perfected the method of immediately sucking the reader in and making the reader hang on for dear life until the final page is turned. What a roller-coaster ride! Madison Cross, rookie crime scene technician, and the Philadelphia P.D. seem to be in the midst of a vicious gang war, with bodies piling up faster than even the efficient Spoons can handle. As if that isn't enough, Madison finds herself loaned out to another county to process a crime scene far more extensive (and sinister) than anyone imagines. The discovery of a dead "alien" in a tenement house further complicates things! The Organized Crime Task Force has the opportunity to flex its muscles, but it's Maddy who really shows off her investigative prowess and manages to ruffle more than a few feathers along the way. In the end, she's the one who solves the cases, with little help from the actual investigators. While the ending of Freezer Burn was quite satisfactory, I'll admit that it didn't give me goosebumps like the previous two books - and I was more than a little disappointed that there wasn't an appearance by Maddy's father (perhaps due in part to the fact that I read the book on my own dad's Angel Anniversary). Even so, Freezer Burn is a 5-star reading experience, and I'll be awaiting anxiously the fourth installment! If you enjoy hardboiled police procedurals, you'll love the C.S.U. Investigation series! Carol Ann Hopkins 6/7/2008

It has been a strange week in Philadelphia if you ask the CSU investigative team. While much of the unit works an arson that took six lives, investigator Tommy Parker and rookie technician Madison Cross work a carved up corpse found in several trash bags by the garbage collectors; the detective in charge "Cold Case" Fenton assumes a neighbor with a record of violence killed the victim, but Madison thinks otherwise. From that case they work the mummy whose organs were frozen. Then there is the twenty two year old wannabe gangbanger Luis Castillo tossed from a speeding car. Evidence point to the Castillo case and another gang member execution are tied to a shootout in rural Lawson; so Detective Ted Johnson and Cross go there to meet with Police Chief Boone. Though a bit irritated with Boone's initial reaction to a technician not an investigator, Madison and the chief are attracted to one another, but first must come the investigation as well as the garbage case she quietly works as Fenton lives up to his nickname using his connection to his cousin the commissioner to avoid field investigation. Nepotism seems the norm as Cold Case Fenton has an uncle for the commissioner and CSU Cross works for her uncle who along with her aunt raised her. Putting family trees aside, this is an exhilarating police procedural that focuses on the work of a CSU team having a busy week with several odd corpses requiring investigation. The story line focuses on Madison, but provides enough support from the support players such as Parker mentoring her to make for a fine rounded crime tale. Fans of the CSI shows will appreciate FREEZER BURN as Madison and the CSU professionals along with Philadelphia's finest investigate several questionable deaths. Harriet Klausner

If you are tired of all the unrealistic CSI shows and books and are looking for an author that delivers realistic crime scene and investigative procedures, the D.H. Dublin is the author you are seeking. In his third novel, "Freezer Burn", we delve into multiple homicides in multiple jurisdictions and watch how such diverse and seemingly unrelated evidence is worked and reworked until the crimes are solved. The book is better forensically than any book I've read by Kathy Reichs or Patricia Cornwell. There are 2 previous books in this series and I hope there are many more to come.