Mörderisches Fest

CSI: Miami #5

by Donn Cortez, Frauke Meier (Übersetzer)

Christmas in Miami—the city is wrapped in its own unique festive cheer, and countless children breathlessly await the arrival of Santa Claus. Except this year there are hundreds of Santas. Miami has been invaded by the Red Menace. An annual gathering of hundreds of red-suited, jolly old fat men and women swarm over the city, comical and annoying, until one of them turns up dead.In what should be a time of goodwill to all the Miami-Dade Crime Lab finds that what appears to be the simplest of crimes hides darker motives. Who would want to kill Santa? Who would go to such lengths to conceal the identity of a victim that they would decapitate him and remove both his hands? And how does a simple convenience store robbery suddenly spiral into an international incident of kidnapping and murder?

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Thriller, Media Tie In, Detective

Hardcover

First published November 23, 2006

About the author

Pseudonyms: Don DeBrandt & DD Barant

Donn Cortez is a pseudonym for Canadian author Don DeBrandt. Born in Saskatchewan, he currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. In addition to North America, his books have been published in Germany, France, Italy, and Russia. His influences include Spider Robinson and John D. MacDonald, among others.

He took a darker turn for The Closer, a hard-edged story about a serial killer hunting other serial killers.

His follow-up, The Man Burns Tonight (set at Burning Man) was more of a classic mystery. This was followed in rapid succession by five CSI: Miami tie-in novels and two CSI: Vegas novels.He has also contributed numerous pop-culture essays to BenBella’s SmartPop anthologies, on subjects such as Angel, Firefly, The Golden Compass, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, King Kong, the X-Men, Star Wars, and Star Trek.

He was the guest editor (as well as a contributor) to the essay anthology Investigating CSI.

Reviews

[Jennifer Wardrip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great read, as always, in the CSI: MIAMI series.

In this book, there are actually three seprate storylines: one involving a Santicon gathering that turns deadly for one jolly St. Nick; one dealing with the discovery of a headless, handless corpse in the Everglades; and one dealing with a simple case of an attack at a convenience store that quickly turns into something much more strange.

This was a quick, fun read -- highly recommended!

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was like reading an episode...so I'd say it did what it likely set out to do.

[Anni1999 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Die Geschichte war wieder einmal unglaublich spannend und bis zum Ende war nicht klar wer der Mörder ist und wie sich die Fälle aufgelöst werden.
Und ich Liebe die Charakter Caine, Delko, Tripp, Calleigh, Wolfe und Alexx sie sind einfach toll. Ich liebe die Informationen die man zu den Charaktern bekommt und die Interaktionen unter ihnen sind einfach mega. Und einige der Sprüche einfach göttlich.
Und oh mein Gott bin ich froh den nächsten Teil schon da zu haben um weiter zu lesen.

[Valerio Pastore · Rating 2 out of 5]

Urgh! Had this book been shorter of a 40%, I'd have loved it. It was written like a TV episode...but then ALL cases, and there are THREE of them, get derailed with new discoveries that point in a totally different direction absolutely unrelated to everything they were working on!!! And when? Right -at 60% of the book!
I was not only physically tired by the time I got to the end, but I wasn't even INTERESTED in what the story had to say.

[Brigitte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Het was een goed verhaal en ook leuk om te lezen over hoe kerstmis gevierd werd door de groep mensen die onderzocht worden door de forensisch rechercheurs.
Er waren nog twee andere zaken, waarvan ik bij 1 de wending niet verwacht had en goed gevonden vond. Het was voor het eerst bij een csi boek dat ik nog echt geen idee had, dus dat vond ik wel een extra pluspunt.

[Anastasia Samara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book years ago and it really fascinated me. I read this book again, and i'd be lying if i say that t didn't fascinated me. Again. I'm so in love with these books, with both the stories and the writing.

[Mandy Witteveen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book if you like csi, the only annoying thing was that the stories flow togheter in a chapter. It jumps from this case to the other case without any headlines. This made me confused about which case was covered in which part of the chapter.....

[Danie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting plots in this novel, and the author manages pretty well to juggle them as well as work in the fact that it's Christmas.

One plot was the death of Santa, a second, the assault in a convenience store and the third was a man whose head was blown off.

A usual the book takes after the series. Having each character, or a couple of characters take each mystery/case.

Here I especially liked how the FBI characters were used. I don't get why the FBI always seems to be portrayed as bordering on either idiots or megalomaniacs. I also liked how both Calleigh and Natalia were portrayed and was impressed that Donn Cortez seemed to stay away from too much sunglasses play by Horatio Caine.

A good solid book to read, especially if you're a CSI or a CSI: Miami fan.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horatio Caine and the CSI: Miami team have three cases to solve around Christmas time. Cortez has a solid understanding of the characters he's dealing with, and you can almost imagine David Caruso and company saying on the screen their lines from this book. Fast-moving story, with a few twists. If you like the show, you'll like the book.

[Nicolas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for Christmas books and CSI: Miami, so this checked a lot of boxes. Not sure a duology was in order, but I'll pick up volume 2 someday.

We discussed this series in a special episode of the all All the Books Show:
https://soundcloud.com/allthebooks/ep...

[Afsana · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was an ok book but I can see why I was put of by the series. The characters are so obnoxious and strange-the me talking to the dead. The strangeness of the sentences. Horitio acting like the all knowing and his team acting like he is all knowing

[Vidya · Rating 1 out of 5]

The more I read it the more I can't get over the fact that the authors apart from the first one know nothing of CSI Miami. If Natalia was there Jenson wasn't, the character was written off after S3. And don't even get me started on the way people are addressed

[Gwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this book, and after reading it I could relate to Ryan Wolfe for starting to hate Santas. Very well-written and easy to read.

[Jacqueline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the show and loved the book.