Move over CSI: Miami.

Hollywood's police department has a tough, titanium, $118,000 Hummer to use for its crime-scene investigations -- thanks to bestselling crime author Patricia Cornwell.

The Hummer has already been customized to hold equipment such as evidence bags and fingerprint kits.

A gargantuan sport utility vehicle descended from the military Humvee, it made an appearance at the recent Candy Cane Parade.

''It was a very magnanimous gift on the part of Patricia Cornwell,'' Capt. Tony Rode said. ``One that will certainly turn a lot of heads for Hollywood residents.''

Cornwell, a Broward resident, has been on several ride-alongs with the Hollywood Police Department this year, to keep her crime-fighting senses sharp.

''They say I am a crime deterrent -- nothing ever happens when I am out there,'' Cornwell joked in a phone interview Tuesday.

During her ride-alongs, she holds flashlights, carries camera equipment and crime-scene kits. She's even willing to get a cup of coffee. But she never interferes with an investigation.

''I'm junior assistant,'' Cornwell said. ``I am not the cop. They are.''

A former crime reporter for the Charlotte Observer, Cornwell spent six years working for the Virginia Chief Medical Examiner's Office and as a volunteer police officer before creating her fictional medical examiner, Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Her latest novel, Blow Fly, a New York Times bestseller, is the 12th to feature Scarpetta.

So how did this world-famous author end up adopting the Hollywood Police Department?

Cornwell met Sue Courtney, a Hollywood crime-scene technician, at the National Forensic Academy in Knoxville, Tenn.

Later, Cornwell started riding along with Hollywood police officers. Courtney told her about Ricardo Lopez, a Hollywood man who killed himself after sending an acid-laced bomb to Icelandic singer Bjrk.

That 1996 case was the focus of a recent ABC Primetime episode.

''They are really good at what they do,'' Cornwell said about Hollywood's police officers. ``. . . That was one heck of a crime-scene investigation. It couldn't have been done better than it was.''

Earlier this year, Cornwell said, she threw the keys to her 2002 Hummer 1 to Hollywood Police Chief James Scarberry and dared him to drive it.

That's when it occurred to her to give the vehicle to the police department. Although the all-terrain vehicle came in handy at her former Connecticut home, she really didn't need it in sunny South Florida.

Cornwell, also a helicopter pilot who admits to a passion for powerful machines, has jokingly drawn a line in her charitable giving.

''They aren't getting my Ferraris,'' she said. ``Don't ask.''