Heat Wave, by Richard Castle

Ever since Firefly I’ve been a big Nathan Fillion fan. He is now the star of Castle on ABC; while not as great as Firefly it is still a lot of fun. Castle is this decade’s Magnum, P.I. or Remington Steele; mystery and humor abound, but the character interactions are what keep you tuning in each week. In the show, Fillion plays Richard Castle, a novelist that gets himself assigned to a police detective in order to do research for a new series of thrillers. In this new age of massive cross-promotion, the marketing wonks at ABC had a ghost writer create actual novels by “Richard Castle;” Heat Wave is the first of these.

Somewhat cheesy but still amusing, the novel follows NYPD Detective Nikki Heat as she tries to solve the murder of a real estate tycoon while dealing with an embedded journalist named Jameson Rook. (Sound familiar? ) This is a good companion to the show; the personalities of the characters in the book mimic those in the show, and some of the events can be found in both places as well. The novel is a common prop in the show and it is fun to see the links between the two. While not in the same caliber as Elizabeth George or Lee Child, this is still an entertaining read—especially for fans of Castle.

First Sentence:

It was always the same for her when she arrived to meet the body.