CSI: Headhunter by Greg Cox

When the anthropology department recieves a shrunken head in the mail, they are puzzled, as it is addressed to one of the professors there, a Malcolm Kim, they are startled but confused, and call in the LVPD's finest to figure out whose it is, if it's real and if so, who might have done it. While Shrunken Heads, known as tsantas to the Jivaro people who make them, are illegal to sell in this country, the real ones are very hard to get, because the Jivaro stopped making them when the government of Peru banned the practice.

The head is found to have nose hairs, something never found on fake heads constructed for the tourist trade, so it's real. And the head's hair has modern haircoloring on it and has recent facelift scars, so it's not an old relic. The inside of the head is done just the same as the tsanta rituals, right down to the materials used and the process for making the head. So if it was done recently and is real, who could it be?

They track down the hair dye, but that's no help. Even though it's a rather expensive and exclusive hair dye, there are still too many salons that use it. But unlike a shrunken head from Peru, the materials used on the tsanta are definitely from the Las Vegas area- the ash on the head is from Joshua trees, and the beads are ones available in Vegas Craft stores. The only other clue is the note with the head, reading "Tumashi Akerkama" or "Blood Guilt".

Grissom's whole team is in on this one, and he even brings in a specialist to recontruct the head so they can see what it might have looked like before it was shrunken and stuffed with sand, but they get a lead that a psychiatrist named Dr. Zounek has disappeared, and his appearance is close to that of the tsanta. But while Catherine and Warrick look into who might have been able to make the head, they find that there's a rich man in Vegas who loves to collect them. Could he have something to do with this?

As they try to figure out who might have wanted to kill Dr. Zounek, their best leads are a psychotic patient and a janitor who was fired after Zounek discovered him watching TV rather than cleaning. But when Dr. Kim, the man whom the head was first sent to, is killed in his home, beheaded and his head stolen, it soon becomes apparent that the Headhunter Killer isn't done with the list of their victims. And even Gil Grissom might find himself on the list. The question is, can they find the killer and stop him or her before Gil Grissom ends up as a Shrunken Head himself?

This was a long and very fascinating book, with lots of details about tsantas and the Jivaro people- occasionally more than some people might want to read. While the description of the process can occasionally be gruesome, it's not dwelt on very much. There's more about who this head might be, and discovering that takes up half the book.

Of course, after they discover the victim's name, it didn't take me long to twig that there was someone else who might have wanted the Doctor dead, and I ended up figuring out who the killer might be before their identity was revealed in the book. I guess I have read too many mysteries, to pick up on those subtle clues right there in the book.

Curiously, although the book lacks the character of Sara Sidle, she still appears on the cover in the back of the book. And while Warrick is still alive, his picture has been replaced with that of Hodges, and I'm curious as to why. Was this a mistake, or a diss on Gary Dourdan, the actor who played Warrick? The book came out last year- was this intended to broadcast that his character was getting killed off? Why lose him and not Sara, when she isn't even in the book, and is only mentioned to tell readers that she left?

While the story itself is fascinating, the execution sometimes feels interminable and too long. The story could have used some judicious tightening. If this was an actual episode from the series, it would have been a two-parter. I only wish the actual story was as tight as an episode would have been. This one barely edges into being recommended, and that's for the story elements.