The Killing Jar

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This novel takes place during the ninth season of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, prior to the introduction of Ra y Langston.

THE RED BABOON SPIDER HISSED at the showgirl.

“She’s a little nervous,” Gil Grissom said. “I don’t take her out in public v er y often.”

On Planet Showgirl, evolution had clearly favored sequins and feathers, while gravity was obviously much less of a factor. The showgirl leaned in closer and peered at the cage. “Hairy, irritable, and poisonous,” she said. “Reminds me of my ex. Nice to see you, Gil.” She strutted off on absurdly high heels, an exotic alien who somehow seemed completely at home.

Grissom glanced around the lobby. He often felt like an outsider in “normal” society, and his usual environment-working graveyard shift at the crime lab in Las Vegas -was anything but. Not only was it one of the busiest labs in the country; Grissom had helped it attain one of the highest case clearance rates as well. His world was one of high contrast, of bodies found in high-roller penthouse suites and in back-alley Dumpsters, of prostitutes who ODed on a thousand dollars’ worth of c ocaine, and homeless men frozen to death in the desert. Vegas was its own world, where all the rules were different and cash was king, where people came for the sex and the buzz and the shows and the slots, and everybody knew that beneath the city’s bright neon smile were the sharp, hungry teeth of a shark. Vegas was a river, a shiny twenty-four-hour current of brilliant color and chiming bells, with the nets that let the fish through while separating them from their money so cleverly designed that people hardly noticed them-and were too enthralled with the glitz to feel their pockets getting lighter.

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