Luck is on the side of most during the incident at the Four Kings Casino and Hotel, when the simmering tension between two rival biker gangs suddenly boils over into all-out violence -- miraculously, there are only two fatalities despite the hundreds of rounds fired on the casino floor. Called to an out-of-control crime scene -- located outside Las Vegas in the legendary town of Boot Hill -- forensic investigators Gil Grissom, Catherine Willows, Nick Stokes, and Sara Sidle quickly discover that the two casino shootout victims were no innocent bystanders: one was the powerful leader of the Predator gang, and the other a luckless card dealer who may have borne witness to an elaborately staged execution. Meanwhile, back in the glitter of Sin City, CSIs Warrick Brown and Greg Sanders have their own hands full, as the dark side of this desert metropolis is about to wreak havoc on the two investigators via a seemingly endless series of crimes. . . .

The bestselling forensic psychologist examines the true crimes that inspired the television smash hit, C.S.I. Katherine Ramsland follows the evidence and revisits some of the most absorbing episodes of the phenomenally popular C.S.I. television franchise, and explores the real-life crimes that inspired them. She also looks into the authenticity of the forensic investigations recreated for the dramatizations, and the painstaking real-life forensic process employed in every one of the actual cases?from notorious mass-murderer Richard Speck, to the massacre of Buddhist monks in an Arizona Temple, to a baffling case of apparent spontaneous combustion.

Meet the little known and even less understood heroes of police work in Las Vegas -- the forensic investigators. Led by veteran Gil Grissom, the remarkable team assigned to the Criminalistics Bureau's graveyard shift -- including Catherine Willows, Warrick Brown, Nick Stokes, and Sara Sidle -- must combine cutting-edge scientific methods and old-fashioned savvy as they work to untangle the evidence behind the yellow police tape. While Nick and Catherine investigate a newly discovered fifteen-year-old murder, Grissom and the rest of the team must uncover the indentity of a cold-blooded killer -- one whose execution-style, "double-tap" signature has provoked the interest of FBI agent Rick Culpepper.

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...

Inspired by the popularity of the CBS television show "C.S.I.: crime scene investigation," the author, who has a master's degree in forensic psychology, goes behind the crime-solving techniques dramatized on the show to examine the reality of these cutting-edge procedures.

There are certain films and shows that resonate with audiences everywhere—they generate discussion and debate about everything from gender, class, citizenship and race, to consumerism and social identity. This new ‘teachable canon’ of film and television introduces students to alternative classics that range from silent film to CSI. Since its debut in September 2000, CSI’s fusion of cinematic spectacle, forensic pathology and character drama has regularly drawn in tens of millions of viewers around the world This original new study investigates CSI’s cultural importance, both for the media industry and for the criminal justice system itself, exploring its formal and narrative style, and its impact on media culture CSI provides a model for studying how genre, narrative, industry concerns, and the broad 'public life' of a television series contribute to our understanding of the nature and function of contemporary popular television