Rating: WORTHY!
Come one, come Stall, and indulge in a real murder mystery. Really this is just a regular murder mystery with a few frills tossed in, but once in a while something like this, which you can't really do in ebook form to the same effect, is fun, especially if you do it with your kids (who need to be PG 13 or somewhere around that level of maturity given the graphical elements). The difference between this and your regular murder mystery, is that this novel contains items of evidence, such as a pamphlet of Haiku, a shredded piece of notepaper that you have to put back together, a blueprint of a house, a partially burned flyer, and crime scene photos among other things. It's a large-format hardback that was fun to indulge myself in.
Mr Bledsoe, a gated-living community developer is found shot dead one evening in his luxury home, and the CSI team has to process the various items of evidence. At the same time, another murder victim is found across town and that situation is as different as could be from this rather rarefied and pristine environment. That victim was shot once in the back of the head and then his rathe rlow-rent little home was burned down! Can the team (i.e. you!) solve both crimes? The actual solution - in a rather lengthy info-dump - is given at the end, so you have until then to solve it all!
The crime wasn't that hard to solve. We got most of it - although not all of it - right, and this despite some misdirection and red herrings. Usually I'm hopeless at this kind of thing, so it was nice to feel like I actually had a handle on the case! I liked this and I recommend it. I have another one by the same author that I'll review before long. It's not CSI though; it is a mystery solving story, but it's about a descendent of Dracula!
