Action That Leaps Off The Page Talking With Author Meg Gardiner About ‘Heat 2’

Posted in Interviews by - December 20, 2022

This holiday season you can take a break from the screens and still get immersed in a movie we’ve all been waiting for…

On this episode we are talking with New York Times Bestselling Author who got the pleasure of pairing up with a cinematic master for a sequel that has been decades in the making and that we never would have expected.  It’s time for Heat 2.

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.

A truly immersive experience and a must for any fans of the original film and this universe, you won’t be able to put it down.

We had the pleasure of sitting down with Meg to talk about who approached who on this project, what her job was working along side  Michael Mann and how important it was at the end of the day to make this a novel and not a screenplay.

This post was written by
David Voigt is a Toronto based writer with a problem and a passion for the moving image and all things cinema. Having moved from production to the critical side of the aisle for well over 15 years now at outlets like Examiner.com, Criticize This, Dork Shelf (Now That Shelf), and to.Night Newspaper. He’s been all across the continent; serving on the FIPRESCI Jury at the Festival Du Nouveau Cinema in Montreal, covering festivals out side of Toronto like Calgary Underground Film Festival, CUFF Docs, Slamdance, Fantasia, SXSW, DOC NYC, Santa Barbara Film Festival, New York Asian Film Festival and many others However, In the uncertain world of modern film journalism, David also knew that he needed to have a hand in writing and cementing his own contributions on the global film scene. Having eclipsed the 10 year anniversary of his own outlet, In The Seats, where he’s been striving to support film (and TV) from all walks of life and his podcast “In The Seats With…” where after 5 & ½ years and over 750 episodes he’s talked with a wide variety of filmmakers, actors, behind the scenes artisans and so much more on the art of storytelling for the screen, which is spawning the launch of a new show in the Spring of 2026. “ITS: Soundtracks” will focus on the use of soundtrack and score in film which he believes is a combination that is the cinematic equivalent of Peanut Butter and Chocolate. All this as well as hosting and moderating a variety of big screen events around the city, covering film in all its forms is just a way of life for him.
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