Heat 2
By Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner
Heat 2 opens in the immediate aftermath of where the movie, Heat, left off. In the days following the intense gunfight with the LAPD, we see a seriously injured Chris Shiherlis, who is the lone survivor of Neil McCauley’s crew, and the subject of a City-wide manhunt, trying desperately to get out of town. Vincent Hanna, the LAPD Detective who has been tracking the crew, and led the gun battle against the bank robbers, is doing all he can to get to Chris before that happens.
The timeline of the book takes us from 1988 to 2000. In the years leading up to the 1995 heist, the story takes us back seven years to a time where we see the “Crew” in their prime. They are performing major heists in LA, Chicago and south of the border in Mexico; where a job goes seriously wrong and they lose a member of the crew. They also come across a sadistic rival who has followed them from Chicago.
In the years following Chris’s exodus from LA, we see him head to Mexico and ultimately end up in the wild frontier of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay. Here we see Chris recover from his wounds, and become an integral part of the Lius crime family. In the following years, we see Chris thrive, not only in his work with the “Family”, but in his personal life as well. Ultimately business leads him back to the “City of Angels” where everything comes full circle.
I remember seeing the movie Heat when it came out. Not only was it a great heist film, but the action scenes and the characters were top notch. And don’t even talk about the gunfight in the streets of LA. That was an epic moment in film that I can’t recall any previous movies even attempting. So when I heard that Michael Mann, whose work I love, and Meg Gardiner, who writes some incredible novels, were writing Heat 2, I knew that this was going to be good; and they didn’t disappoint. I did watch the movie again right before I read the book. This is one of the first times that I could see, and hear, the characters in the book, because I knew who they were from the movie. Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Val Kilmer and all the other actors were in my head the whole time. This book reads like you are watching a movie, and it is just as good as the original Heat as it fleshes out the arcs of all of the major players in the book. Heat 2 is the answer for everyone asking what book to read next. Probably the best book of the year.
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