How a Vegas Dreamer Made a Killing in Hollywood, One Body at a Time
November 21, 2011
The creator of TV’s mega-popular CSI franchise, Zuiker brings his obvious skills as a writer to this memoir that will delight CSI fans. Zuiker begins with a death—the suicide of his father, who he hadn’t seen for 25 years, on the same night that CSI is receiving a People’s Choice Award and proceeds to skillfully weave his own upward struggle as a writer with his recollections and investigation of his father’s downward struggle as a fringe player in the Las Vegas gambling scene. Following his own dictum for the best CSI scripts—“The facts always told the best story”—Zuiker gives an unsentimental account of his father’s cruelty and desertion, his mother’s valiant attempts to keep going, and his own lively stories from his time as a bellman at the Mirage hotel in Vegas (Quentin Tarantino was a “good tipper”). But the book’s best section is his detailed account of the show’s creation, from his first attempts at screenwriting and his early research with Vegas CSI investigators, to how the show was picked up by CBS after being rejected by every other major network.
October 15, 2011
The creator of one of TV's most successful franchises spills his guts. Zuiker knows how to tell a story, and like most episodes of CSI, this one begins with a grisly crime scene in a low-rent Las Vegas apartment. There, the real-life inspirations for the author's fictional characters discovered the body of his long-estranged father, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Zuiker received the news the next morning, after having attended an awards show the night before, and his return to his hometown to deal with the aftermath provides a gripping start to his memoir. The reminiscences about his troubled relationship with his father, a hustler in the old Vegas mold, distinguish the book as more than an ordinary autobiography of a self-made man. But the majority of the narrative is just that, told with humor and a notable lack of ego. Zuiker's ambition to succeed was clear from an early age, and he embarked on a series of often ill-advised get-rich schemes, including selling dice games of his own creation through vending machines and creating advertising ideas for businesses from casinos to adult stores. However, it was his involvement with scholastic public-speaking competitions that led to his eventual triumph in Hollywood. The actual creation of the CSI franchise makes up a relatively small part of the story, though there are a few anecdotes about the stars and the people behind the scenes. The promise of the book's beginning remains largely unfulfilled, however, as Zuiker finds forgiveness for his father's shortcomings but fails to explore their impact on his life. A well-told tale of rags to Hollywood riches, but a missed opportunity for a deeper exploration of a creative mind.
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July 1, 2011
Zuiker really did make a killing by masterminding CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and its spin-offs, and he's also the author of the cross-platform "Level 26" trilogy, just wrapping in November. But his memoir addresses a different kind of killing as well--his estranged father's suicide. With a 50,000-copy first printing; this will be popular.
Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
November 1, 2011
In this raw and compelling memoir, Zuiker, the man behind the ubersuccessful CSI entertainment franchise, shares not only how he came to create the three hit television shows but also the details of his strained relationship with his father, who committed suicide in 2005, and his quest to discover why his father took his own life. Zuiker grew up in Las Vegas, raised by his mother after his dad split. Intelligent and competitive, he strove to excel at school and in many youthful business ventures, including penning greeting cards and coming up with advertising slogans for local businesses. Following stints at a brokerage firm and driving a tram for the Mirage hotel, Zuiker's creativity eventually led him to Los Angeles, where he sold his first screenplay. After watching a nonfiction cable show about crime scene investigators, Zuiker came up with the idea for a new kind of crime drama, one that would end up revolutionizing the television landscape. An inspiring look at how Zuiker's efforts and ingenuity brought about his incredible success.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)