Heat Wave

by Richard Castle

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

I’m not really surprised that this was a perfectly horrible book.

I mean, it’s a series spun off the show Castle, and honestly… it just reads like bad fanfiction.

Nikki Heat is an attractive but stubborn and alone detective. When she gets saddled with a journalist by the mayor who shadows her on the job (sound familiar?), she brushes him off. Then tragedy hits and Rook suddenly becomes useful… and interesting. He connects her with great contacts and his boyish charm delights her, though she’d never admit it.

Maybe, just maybe, she’s falling for him. But first she’s got a murder to solve.

This whole novel feels exactly like an episode of Castle. But badly done, like the last season. The entire cast of characters is there, right down to Laney/Lauren and Martha/Rook’s Actress Mother. The only character missing is the best one (Alexis).

As far as crime goes, the story was not very plausible and a lot more time was spent speculating on the potential romance between Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook. “Roach” the collective Ryan and Esposito characters, are actually pretty horrible. Which is a bummer because I liked them on the show.

Ah, oh well. Lesson learned! No more TV show tie-ins.