Naked Heat by Richard Castle

If a sequel is better than the original, does that guarantee it gets a better rating than the original?

Why I do this to myself I have no idea. I read something bad and at the first opportunity to read more of it, I pounce. The sequel to Heat Wave, Naked Heat, is the book Richard Castle ostensibly wrote during the second season of Castle and once again it reads like an episode of the show, rather than a story the character himself would write. It's far less egregious this time, but characters continue to be direct copies of their show counterparts, sexual tension between the detective and the writer who follows her continues to be central to most character-focused interaction.

One problem with this is that during the 2nd season, Castle was intensely jealous of a rival for Beckett's affection, and it was even mentioned Nikki Heat got a boyfriend that Castle was toying around with killing before the end. This character never appears in the book. Also, the last half of the book was supposedly finished while Castle was sleeping with his publisher, but the publisher's character in the book wasn't portrayed flatteringly and mostly Castle wrote Rook just wanting to avoid her. Considering his relationship with that character, he wouldn't have written that character that way, I don't think.

The characters have a few things to say and do that aren't in the TV show, and the mystery itself is much more interesting and intelligently plotted than Heat Wave's was. However, in the end, it's not a new, unique experience that makes use of the medium and reflects the character of the writer. It's just an episode of the show in book form, but at least this one was an okay episode.

I waffled a lot about my star rating for this book. On the one hand, it is better written and more interesting than its predecessor, which earned its 1 star pretty hard. On the other, I still wouldn't recommend it except to fans of the TV show who have already seen the whole show and still want more. I guess I give it three stars for people who are already fans of the show, one star for people who actually just want to read a mystery thriller.

Heat Wave by Richard Castle

This book is ostensibly written by Richard Castle, a fictional character and main protagonist of the TV show Castle. He's supposed to be a James Patterson, Dean Koontz, Tom Clancy style blockbuster author, with a focus on Mystery Thrillers. Heat Wave is, within the context of the TV show, the novel he writes over the course of the first season, using the show's other main character as inspiration; Kate Beckett, an NYPD detective.

However, this book is really more of a book written by 'some guy' inspired by watching the TV show than by 'Castle' inspired by Beckett. Every character in the book has a direct analogue to the TV show, to the point where the book may as well not have even replaced the names. Within the context of the book, there's a journalist following Nikki Heat around named Jameson Rook... yeah. Heat and Rook have an intense attraction to one another hiding behind a veneer of sarcasm and mild resentment (on her side at least)

So really, it isn't actually a book, it's one episode of the TV show in book form. It's not a terribly good episode either. The plot unfolds so predictably that it's almost painful. The millionaire industrialist is actually broke. His trophy wife is a former stripper. The virtuous accountant is less than virtuous. The crazy Russian giant loses an identifiable ring in a key location because he needed to lose it there to connect the two crime scenes. The only original idea comes near the end, and it's the only salvagable part of the experience.

Overall, it doesn't read like a book written by the character Richard Castle would, it doesn't give fans of the show anything new for these characters to do, and the plot is noticeably less intelligent than plots on the show tend to be. All the humor falls flat as does the romance. The action scenes are okay though, and those are hard to write. Skip this book and watch the TV show, after all, it stars Nathan Fillion. If you watch it all and can't wait to watch more, the book might be worth your time... all 3ish hours it'd take to finish. It's only about 180 pages long.