Monday 18 January 2010

CBR2 Book 20: "Heat Wave" by Richard Castle

Publisher: Hyperion
Page count: 208 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Date begun: January 10th, 2010
Date finished: January 11th, 2010

The first novel in Richard Castle's new mystery series features NYPD homicide detective Nikki Heat, who is tough, sexy and determined to bring murderers to justice. Heat is none to pleased to be saddled magazine journalist Jameson Rook trailing her on cases, as research on his new in-depth article on the NYPD. A real-estate magnate has been murdered, and Nikki Heat has to weed through the numerous suspects while trying not to get to exasperated by (or attracted to) the smart-ass writer accompanying her on the job.

Heat Wave is the tie-in novel to ABC's mystery series Castle and apparently written by the main character of said show, Richard Castle. I have been unable to find out who ghostwrote the book, but as a piece of marketing it's wonderful. The book ended up at #6 on the New York Times best seller list, and feels exactly like the sort of book you'd imagine Castle actually writes. The plot plays out pretty much like an episode of the show, the only big difference of course being that the leads in the book actually hook up - something Castle and Beckett have yet to do on TV. Even the supporting characters are pretty recognisable from the TV show. If you go with the premise that this was actually written by Richard Castle, it's interesting how much wish-fulfilment he puts into his novel. A fun, if somewhat schlocky read, if you enjoy the show.

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