CSI: Intern at Your Own Risk by Sekou Hamilton and Steven Cummings

Kiyomi Hudson is a high-school student of a rather cash-strapped family. Her mother is gone, and her father is a cab driver trying to keep them afloat on his small salary. But Kiyomi has a dream of being a CSI in Las Vegas, at the largest Crime Lab (not to mention the best) in the country. To that end, she takes a test to Intern at the Lab.

At the test, she is told that only five intern positions are open, and proceeds to take the test along with the other applicants. When the results come back, there are five interns who aced the test- and Kiyomi isn't among them. What upsets Catherine Willows is that there are no women among the top-scorers, but she tells Gil Grissom that Kiyomi scored exceptionally well in psychological profiling, and decides to give her one of the spots.

Kiyomi is thrilled to make the team, and reports for duty, where she and the other interns are introduced to their first case, the death of Gretchen Yates, a fifteen year old High School student, who attended the same High School the interns attend: Las Vegas High.

Kiyomi is rocked by this news. They all went to the same High School, but none of them really knew her- or knew she was dead. It's sobering to think that someone their own age could have someone hate her enough to kill her, and Kiyomi persuades the others to try and solve the murder themselves. But could Christof, Damian, Gregory, Kirin and Kiyomi find out who the real killer is?

On the second day, they are given a case to solve, and quickly see it is a historical rehash of the "Aunt Thally" Thallium poisonings. Doing a quick test on the "Evidence" proves their case, and they eventually get taken to Gretchen's house to look over the crime scene. But when pictures on her computer turn up the sign of a blood-splattered Intern's badge, the five have to face that the killer was one of them- one of the CSI interns. The Question is, which one of them killed her? And can the others figure it out in time to track him down and put him away?

I did like this graphic novel, done in a style somewhere between manga and western comics. but the story, while interesting, had quite a few drawbacks in both art and writing. While we get to know Kiyomi's name early on, the other CSI Interns are only identified by last name when they are interviewed, and then use first names among themselves- making it hard to figure out who these people are by name.

The art comes up lacking in the faces of the characters from the show. When we see an adult CSI, the only ones I could figure out who they were without clues from the story were Gil Grissom, Catherine Willows and Dr. Harold Robbins, the coroner. We also see Greg and probably Nick, but it was almost impossible to tell that by the art. I've seen better art in the western CSI comics when it comes to depicting the main characters- we don't even get to see Warrick or Sara. There's even a guy who looked like Hodges, but that was in the field, he had more hair than Hodges, and he didn't speak right for Hodges. I found this sloppy art inexcusable- either the artist didn't care to get the main CSI characters correctly, or he didn't know what they looked like and lacked reference pictures. Either one makes me sad, as this is attempting to tie into the CSI franchise- they'd better get the characters right! Even the ones who I could tell who they were supposed to be didn't particularly look like the main characters, except for Grissom.- and that was mainly because of his beard and moustache.

But I did enjoy the story, more or less. Once you can get over the fact that the CSIs must be sloppy in order to let the story go ahead- they didn't look at the pictures on the hard-drive that let the Interns see she was killed by one of their own? But the story was thrilling and chilling in all the right places, and it kept my interest. I'm hoping that there are more with these characters, and that the artist learns to draw the main CSI characters better. Recommended.