World Famous Comics: Criminal Minds: Finishing School
Criminal Minds: Finishing School
By: Max Allan Collins Publisher: Signet Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Signet Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 288 Publication Date: November 04, 2008
Product Description: From Edgar® Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Max Allan Collins
BASED ON THE CBS TELEVISION SHOW HAILED AS “The network’s best new offering.” (Wall Street Journal)
Watched by nearly 18 million fans weekly
The bodies of three young girls are discovered in the woods of Bemidji, Minnesota, the result of barbiturate poisoning. Unable to identify the victims, the local police turn to the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Profiler David Rossi learns that the girls disappeared more than ten years ago from Georgia. Further investigation reveals that the perpetrators have been involved in a cycle of kidnapping and murder for close to twenty years—and are about to start again…
Review: Criminal Minds: Finishing School by Max Allan Collins Three hunters in the woods of Bemidji, Minnosota stumble upon a decomposed hand while tracking a deer. The local police are called in and discover the bodies of three blonde girls ranging from ages 12-15. Fearing they had a serial killer on their hands, the Behavioral Analyst Unit (BAU) is called in to investigate these murders. After Jennifer Jareau, JJ to her friends, finds the case, she hands it over to the team. They gear up and travel to the freezing cold Minnosota to track the killer. While the BAU is creating a profile of the UnSub (Unknown Subject), their technical analyst Penelope Garcia gets a hit on the DNA of the first girl. She was abducted over ten years ago at age three from Georgia. Hotchner sends David Rossi and Emily Prentiss to Georgia to continue on that trail while Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan, Dr. Spencer Reid, and Jennifer Jareau remain behind to interview suspects and follow up on the evidence. As Rossi and Prentiss continue searching in Georgia and the other two girls are identified, the BAU team is on their way to creating their profile and solving the case.
Criminal Minds: Finishing School by Max Allan Collins is based off the CBS television series: Criminal Minds. As a huge fan of the show, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I felt that the character portrayles worked well, and I could constantly hear the actors' voices while reading Finishing School. The profile the BAU created was believable, and the novel had a few twists and turns to keep you guessing on who exactly was the murderer/kidnapper. If you enjoy mystery novels and are a fan of the show, you will particularly enjoy this book.
If you like the show, you should enjoy this book Max Allan Collins is an incredibly prolific author and his adaptations of and novels based on movies and TV series can be counted on to deliver satisfaction. "Criminal Minds: Finishing School" is no exception. The characters are those of the TV series, presented just as the scriptwriters and actors present the characters. The story fits the show's formula and could easily be an episode.
Keeps you guessing to the ...finish With this third offering, Max Allen Collins has hit his stride in working with the elements of this series. The pacing is a little slower, but that gives the BAU team -- and us the readers -- time to really get to full understand the UnSub and his motives. And to find out to our surprise that there are, in fact two UnSubs responsible: a childless married couple with a completely warped sense of how to protect children from the dangerous things in life. But at the same time, the story is crafted so subtly, you'll have a hard time guessing just who the UnSub is, among the characters.
Of the three tie-ins that Max Allen Collins has written for this series, this one would definitely be easy to place into the chronology of the TV series. The fact that it takes place in the winter would put it during the gap caused by the writers' strike last year; plus the conversation between Jennifer "JJ" Jarreau and Emily Prentiss at the end hint at JJ's secret relationship and subsequent pregnancy, making this more than just a side-story in this particular series, but a clear-cut part of the continuity.
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