Heat 2
Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller!
Michael Mann, four-time-Oscar-nominated writer-director of The Last of the Mohicans, The Insider, Ali, Miami Vice, Collateral, and Heat teams up with Edgar Award-winning author Meg Gardiner to deliver Mann's first novel, an explosive return to the universe and characters of his classic crime film--with an all-new story unfolding in the years before and after the iconic movie
"A hard-boiled, cinematic read that moves as fast as a well-planned heist." --Esquire
One day after the end of Heat, Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer) is holed up in Koreatown, wounded, half delirious, and desperately trying to escape LA. Hunting him is LAPD detective Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino). Hours earlier, Hanna killed Shiherlis's brother in arms Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) in a gunfight under the strobe lights at the foot of an LAX runway. Now Hanna's determined to capture or kill Shiherlis, the last survivor of McCauley's crew, before he ghosts out of the city.
In 1988, seven years earlier, McCauley, Shiherlis, and their highline crew are taking scores on the West Coast, the US-Mexican border, and now in Chicago. Driven, daring, they're pulling in money and living vivid lives. And Chicago homicide detective Vincent Hanna--a man unreconciled with his history--is following his calling, the pursuit of armed and dangerous men into the dark and wild places, hunting an ultraviolent gang of home invaders.
Meanwhile, the fallout from McCauley's scores and Hanna's pursuit cause unexpected repercussions in a parallel narrative, driving through the years following Heat.
Heat 2 projects its dimensional and richly drawn men and women into whole new worlds--from the inner sanctums of rival crime syndicates in a South American free-trade zone to transnational criminal enterprises in Southeast Asia. The novel brings you intimately into these lives. In Michael Mann's Heat universe, they will confront new adversaries in lethal circumstances beyond all boundaries.
Heat 2 is engrossing, moving, and tragic--a masterpiece of crime fiction with the same extraordinary ambitions, scope, and rich characterizations as the epic film.
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Become an affiliateMichael Mann is a world-renowned director, screenwriter, producer, and one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers in American cinema. Mann has written and directed award-winning television movies and series (including Miami Vice and Crime Story) and feature films including Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, Ali, and Miami Vice. He has produced numerous feature films, including Academy Award-winner The Aviator (directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett) and directed several commercially successful, critically acclaimed projects including the feature film Collateral (starring Tom Cruise) and the pilot for the HBO series Luck (starring Dustin Hoffman). Mann has won many prestigious awards, including a BAFTA for Best Film (The Aviator), a Golden Globe for Best Picture/Drama (The Aviator), and an NBR Award for Best Director (Collateral). Mann lives in Los Angeles.
Meg Gardiner is the author of fifteen acclaimed, award-winning novels. Her thrillers have been bestsellers in the U.S. and internationally and have been translated into more than twenty languages. China Lake won an Edgar Award and UNSUB, the first in Gardiner’s acclaimed UNSUB series, won a Barry Award. Her third UNSUB novel, The Dark Corners of the Night, has been bought by Amazon Studios for development as a television series. A former lawyer, three-time Jeopardy! champion, and two-time president of Mystery Writers of America, Gardiner lives in Austin, Texas.
"Heat 2 is a brilliant and riveting novel with rich and real characters and powerhouse storytelling that represents one of the most authentic evocations of criminals and the cops who hunt them down that I've ever read. The first novel from Michael Mann (and Meg Gardiner) is a tour de force that works as a standalone but also honors, deepens, and expands Mann's iconic film by placing all the key characters in an intricately detailed and emotionally involving new story that takes place before and after Heat." -- Don Winslow
As in The Godfather, Part Two, Mann and Gardiner's riveting thriller functions as both a prequel and a sequel. . . . The best thing about this innovative tale is the way the fully fleshed human stories support and even transcend the often-breathtaking action. -- Booklist [starred review]
"Michael Mann's Heat is one of my all-time favorite movies. Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner's Heat 2 is now one of my favorite suspense novels. The voice of this book is a brilliant melding of the way we talk and the way we think. I must confess I did put the novel down occasionally, but only because I didn't want it to end. I'm already quoting lines from Heat 2 to my writer friends (shamelessly saying the lines are mine)." -- James Patterson
Prepare for an epic journey. . . . The world of international drug cartels and crime syndicates has never been so gripping. . . . Heat was a cinematic spectacle, and this sequel manages to create the same immersive experience in written form. . . . Gardiner and Mann are legends, and this book will be the best seller that leads the cry for a film version. -- Library Journal (starred review)
"Heat 2 gives us an exciting, emotionally rich thriller, with just as much style and panache as Michael Mann's original classic heist movie. I loved it." -- Adrian McKinty, #1 international bestselling author
"Heat 2 is a classic of the crime genre . . . The story is quintessential Mann. We are introduced to a world reminiscent of the criminal empires that he created in his films Miami Vice and Collateral . . . with an emerging international dark economy fueled by narco-states, rogue oil kingdoms, criminal syndicates and brilliant gentleman thieves doing deals with the highest bidders. Mix in mercenaries and a corrupt defense contractor and you get a sense of what you're in for with this novel." -- The Spectator World
"Awesome! This novel is a stunning achievement in character study, narrative form and action. I am in awe. A stunning page-turner every bit as masterful as the original movie. Easily one of the finest novels of the year!" -- Steve Cavanagh, #1 international bestselling author
Heat 2 is an action-packed epic reviving beloved characters from a globally celebrated film. It is also a moving meditation on commitment--the rewards and the costs of giving your all. Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner have deepened the legacy of Heat--and given us one hell of a page-turner. A stunning, mammoth achievement. -- Bill Beverly, author of Dodgers
This audacious, powerhouse of a novel brings to the page everything the classic crime film Heat brought to the screen. . . Drawn by Mann and Gardiner with psychological and emotional gravity, the characters live their lives of crime and violence on the edge of a razor. The plot and the set-pieces of shootouts, heists, and crime-scene investigation are nails. The characters' motives are obsessive. The details of police work and criminal enterprise, precise and revealing. The banter is quick and smart and memorable. And the metaphors and descriptions conjure up vivid, original images worthy of Mann's best big movies. -- Eric Rickstad, New York Times bestselling author
Heat 2, which combines the feeling of both prologue and coda to the iconic Michael Mann 1995 film, deepens our understanding of the original world and simultaneously upends it with new wrinkles of mania and humanity. . . . Mann's brooding moments of sublime isolation are there in abundance, combined with Gardiner's deft touch for modern thrillers. The result is an intensely satisfying crime story. -- Crimereads
Propulsive. -- Sam Sifton, New York Times
Told in a style as propulsive and cinematic as the film, Heat 2 is an exciting and engrossing tale that leaves the door open to a third installment. -- AV Club