Fans of the television show “Castle” will love the newly released “Deadly Heat” by Richard Castle. The main character of the show is a novelist, and after teaming up with Detective Kate Beckett, he starts writing a new series of mystery novels, the “Heat” series, based on Beckett and himself. Jameson Rook and Nikki Heat team up to solve cases all across New York City, propelling them into danger and possibly love.
What I didn’t know was that the show’s writers actually published Richard Castle’s books. Just as they are in the television show, the books are based off of cases on which Castle and Beckett work together. In fact, even the covers are the same ones that they periodically show in the show when Castle does book signing or is seen in his office.
The plot of the latest Richard Castle thriller is one that will be familiar to fans of the show, as “Deadly Heat” follows the plot line of Beckett’s own life issue: the death of her mother. In the show, her mother is killed years earlier and she avenges her death. In the book, Castle turned it up a notch making her death not just a homicide, but an ordered hit from a CIA station chief. Castle also gave himself a Pulitzer Prize, and Nikki and Jameson find a terror plot buried beneath an already lethal situation.
On top of the fact that Nikki has her mother’s death and a terror plot to worry about, a serial killer starts terrorizing her precinct. Just to add some more suspense, the killer has singled out Nikki as his next victim.
The book is unrealistic and fabulous. While the plot elements are completely over-the-top and out of control, the way that they weave together is seemingly flawless. Superheroes don’t come out of nowhere to save someone, and everything could have a possible explanation.
Nikki is just like Beckett in her mannerisms and tone of voice, while Jameson is a suaver version of Castle. This makes sense because the writers of the show know what they are doing, but I also love the way that it is believable that a real man named Richard Castle could have written this book. Fans will see Castle try to hide his boyish charm and fail, while new readers will see a hero in Jameson, and follow him and Nikki into the twisted world that is the alternate Manhattan of the “Heat” series.