I think that Greg Cox may be the best writer in the CSI stable of writers. I really liked just how many little tidbits from past shows were sprinkled throughout the novel.

The mysteries weren't wickedly inventive, though they were a little different than the usual CSI cases. There were zombies as well as quite an awesome snake attack during a massage.

And finally, there was some actual Sara Sidle in the book, more than just a mention too, but actual involvement in one of the stories.

Also, I was impressed that this book, more than usual at least, someone who had never seen the CSI show could pick up the book and the story would make sense to them as much as it would to a die hard CSI fan. That doesn't happen often with TV media tie in novels.

A great book and they need to let Mr. Cox write more CSI novels. ( )

So, the second of the four CSI tie-ins in my possession. (Maybe five soon. Depending on work.) Of the two that I’ve read thus far, this reads as the more fan-fictiony of the two. There’s very long descriptions of the characters and the rooms, which don’t feel like they’re setting up the scene, but rather, laundry lists. Cox also continuously references prior episodes—specifically, the more well-known arcs—which get tiresome after a while. It’s okay to have one or two mentions, but if I’m following the show, I don’t need big recaps of every major storyline. It would have been fine if he mentioned a line of Vegas killers in the waxworks museum and left it at that.

The two central mysteries were okay. Again, it felt very choppily written, and while the motives and strange murder set-ups are very much in the CSI universe, I couldn’t really get into either mystery. The snake murder was the more interesting of the two, with the varying leads and wild goose chase the team goes on, but I felt like there were some things that could have been used more. The titular “Shock Treatment” murder wasn’t anything special, and just felt like an excuse to shove pop culture references (and lengthy explanations of them) to the reader.

Overall, I didn’t have as much fun reading Shock Treatment as I did with Dark Sundays. Obviously with two different authors, there are going to be many textual differences, but I couldn’t really gel with Cox’s writing. The plots are close to the original show, but lack a lot of the fun parts that CSI has.
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