Heat Wave by Richard Castle

Heat Wave by Richard Castle

The entertainment industry is split into various divisions, and they like very much to overlap. Books are adapted to film, film to television, perhaps to videogames and everything in between plus any sort of plausible combination is allowable. Most creative parties are aware and take advantage of this fact. Such is the case of Heat Wave. For those unfamiliar with the book’s background, Castle is an hourly procedural of sorts starring Nathan Fillion as Richard Castle, an author of murder mystery novels, who assists in homicide cases with Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic), the inspiration behind his newest novels. There’s a fantastic character dynamic between the two, one of give and take banter and a strong “will they or won’t they.” Heat Wave takes this aspect of the show and translates it perfectly to the written page. The mystery is solid enough, not enough to make me gasp when the murderer is revealed, but in all honesty, that’s not the reason to pick up Heat Wave. The simple truth is that from the dedication before the novel begins to the main character’s name (Jameson Rook), this book is written for Castle fans. There are a lot of nods to the series which is fitting since Castle is using his “research” at the NYPD to write this particular book. The most enjoyable experiences with Heat Wave are had when the reader maintains a mindset of Castle actually writing it, being the man behind the curtains, instead of some unnamed ghost writer. Snickering with the thought of Beckett’s reaction to a particular risqué chapter is only one instance. Bottom line, Heat Wave has the potential of appealing to a wide audience, yet its main focus is the fans, those who can match every character with their slightly different counterpart and catch all of the fan service aimed their way. It’s excellent for those reasons, 5 stars. *****