“Naked Heat”   by Richard Castle

2011 Book Review #68

Book List Review

‘Castle’ is the title of a television cop show in which a mystery novelist, Richard Castle, teams up with a female NYPD detective (under the pretense of conducting research).  In the show, Castle writes novels about a female New York cop, Nikki Heat, who reluctantly pairs up with a writer, Jameson Rook, who's a fictionalized version of Castle himself.

Got all that? Anyway, ‘Naked Heat’ is the second Nikki Heat novel, credited, like the first (Heat Wave, 2009) to Richard Castle.  Leaving aside the fiction-within-another-fiction concept, it's a pretty fair mystery.

Heat and Rook are written in the familiar contempt-breeds-familiarity style: they start out antagonists and wind up partners (and more). We've seen them before, with other names in other stories, and we like them because they're comfortable. The story, which begins with a pair of murders that appear to be connected only by their MO, is slick and enjoyable without being too taxing on the reader's imagination. The book is exactly what it's supposed to be: an entertaining but undemanding mystery that should draw attention to the TV series from which it's spun off.

HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The TV series Castle is a big hit, and many of its fans will be curious to read a real book by their favorite fictional mystery writer.

My Thoughts:  I agree with the reviewer.   I have read both Nikki Heat books and enjoyed both.  It’s not as complicated as the review would make it seem.  It’s a spin off of the TV show, ‘Castle’.  Just as simple as that!