Heat Wave by Richard Castle

Heat Wave: The First Book of the Nikki Heat Series

I confess. I’m a binge reader. When I’ve got a good book in my hands, I stay glued to it until it’s done. That’s how I read Heat Wave. After crawling out of bed on a beautiful Saturday morning, I settled in on the couch and read the first installment of Richard Castle’s Nikki Heat series. It may have taken me until halfway through the book to realize that the shadow of Detective Heat on the cover is unclothed, but I didn’t miss much else.

I paid special attention to the sizzling romance between Heat and journalist Jameson Rook. The relationship between Rook and Heat shares a similar friction to that of the relationship between Detective Kate Beckett and crime novelist Richard Castle from the TV show, Castle, as it should. The Richard Castle books, written by a ghost writer, are fashioned as the work of the fictional author in Castle, who shadows a homicide detective to get ideas for his novels. Like the Richard Castle in the TV show, the Jameson Rook of the Heat novels, ends up assisting with the investigations.

The plot of Heat Wave is simple, but not simplistic. A man is found dead after falling from a balcony. The NYPD determines it is a murder. The man has a trophy wife, a mountain of debt and a vast art collection. These three things wind up connecting to point Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook towards the murderer. Naturally, guns are drawn, people get defensive, romance sparks, and more people wind up dead before it’s all over. In true Richard Castle style, the reader is never quite sure ‘who’ or ‘why’ until the very end, but when the details come together the story is clear and satisfying. The meringue on the pie is the fiery attitude of Nikki Heat. Heat plows through every barrier, including an attempt on her life, and manages to come out of it all with the killer and a witty line. When the killer considers pointing his gun at Heat, she counters with, “Go ahead . . . I need a new blouse anyway.”  What a great piece of dialogue. I confess; I’ve always loved a witty line.