Keith R. A. DeCandido is the author of numerous novels and story tie-ins with shows such as Star Trek and its spin-offs, Supernatural, Dr. Who, Andromeda and Farscape among others. His first venture into the CSI world is the CSI: New York novel Four Walls set towards the end of the show's third season. DeCandido discussed his desire to write a New York book, his thoughts on the characters' back stories and the traumatic events they've undergone as well as his opinion on the current storylines in season four.
CSI Files: Congrats on the publication of your the CSI: New York novel, Four Walls! How did you end up penning a CSI book?
Keith R. A. DeCandido: It's not my usual thing as far as genre goes because I usually write science fiction and fantasy, but it is my usual in terms of being a TV show tie-in, which I've done many. I've written Star Trek novels, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, Farscape, Andromeda and some others and I've written some stuff that would qualify as a mystery even though they were published as science fiction. I did a novel called Dragon Precinct which was a part fantasy mystery, and I've done a couple of Spiderman novels that could qualify as mysteries, as well as my Supernatural book. So I’ve written stuff that has at the very least mystery undertones. I'm also a big fan of stories that take place in New York City. The two Spiderman novels I've written [are set in New York], my first Supernatural novel also takes place in New York, I wrote a Buffy novel that takes place in New York in the '70s--one of the previous Slayers operated there. Just in general--I love writing stories that take place in my home town of New York.
So the editor of the CSI: New York line was aware of this. I had actually asked originally to work on the books when the show first started, however the editor at Pocket preferred, for perfectly understandable reasons, to go with the Edgar-award winning mystery author! Stuart Kaminsky did the first three. The Pocket contract only calls for four books. Stuart ended up not being available for the fourth book so the editor, who was someone I worked with before, turned to me and said, "Would you like to still do it?" And I said yes. So that's pretty much how it happened.
CSI Files: So this could potentially be the last CSI: New York novel?
DeCandido: Potentially. Like I said, the original contract called for four [novels] and [Four Walls] is the fourth and then I don't know one way or the other if Pocket will renew [the contract] or not. The hierarchy with the CSI [novels] pretty much follows what it is with the TV shows. The Vegas one is the most popular, followed by Miami, followed by New York. I honestly don't know what the future of the license will be beyond that.
CSI Files: Are you a fan of the CSI franchise?
DeCandido: I haven't been a dedicated follower of it. And the show rewards that sort of thing anyway--it tends to put the mysteries first--it's the sort of thing you can catch when you can. But when I got the assignment [for the book], I started watching CSI: New York more aggressively obviously. I wanted to be as up-to-date as possible, so DVD sets were only going to do me good up through the first two seasons. The third season was running at the time I was writing the book. The book actually takes place between the last two episodes of the season, right before "Snow Day", right after the whole Clay Dobson thing came to an end and that actually plays into the story and sets "Snow Day" up. It's not a major element; it just sort of places it in the show's history. The two main mysteries aren't specifically related to them, but the events of the previous episodes come into play in how the characters are dealing with stuff. When you're doing a novel, you need to get into the characters' heads a little more than you have to do in a 42 minute episode. You have the opportunity to dig into it a little more than the show does.
CSI Files: From the first chapter of the novel, it's clear you delve into Don Flack's head quite a bit and what he went through after the injuries he sustained in "Charge of This Post". What made you decide to focus on that incident?
DeCandido: There's one sequence, one chapter where three of the characters--Flack, Stella and Hawkes--all have nightmares relating to things that happened to them on the show. They're all triggered by events that happen in the book. Stella's working on a case where her number one suspect was previous accused of rape, and that triggers memories of her boyfriend, Frankie, who attacked her. The other case that Hawkes is working on along with Danny and Mac takes place in a prison and that reminds Hawkes of when he was arrested for murder, when he was framed by Shane Casey. And Flack [is grappling with pain] pills. So all three of them are having nightmares about their traumatic experiences. Basically what I was trying to do there was just address something the show doesn't do very often which is that some of these people have gone through some incredibly traumatic things. One of the things I'm actually enjoying in the fourth season is with Danny dealing with the fallout of Ruben Sandoval's death.
Sometimes the show hasn't been as good [at follow up] as it could be. In Flack's case in particular, those were some nasty injuries! And the next time we see him, he's just walking around like nothing happened. There's some mention of it by Stella and Lindsay [in "People with Money"] and then it's never mentioned again. He'd be on pain killers for months and months after that. I did notice that when he was having that hot and heavy thing with that blonde he was seeing that he kept his undershirt on [in "You Only Die Once"]. I hope if he ever does end up with his shirt off, they remember he should have very impressive scars [on his stomach]!
Television has a tendency to soft pedal what it takes to recover from a major traumatic experience. So that first chapter and later on with Flack dealing with stuff hurting him was just to show that those kinds of things tend to have longer term consequences than you usually see. And Flack's the kind of person who wouldn't let it show anyhow. When you're writing a novel, you have to get into more depth.
CSI Files: Were there any characters in the show you found it difficult to write?
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And great answers KRAD, it's nice to get some insight into the author's view of the show and the characters. 
And, from my point of view, it's great to know when the book is supposed to be set, as that was something I struggled with when reading one of the previous NY books, I just couldn't figure it out!
Flack is my favourite character. And the fact that Angell and Adam are both in the book is great too. 
