HEAT RISES by Richard Castle

HEAT RISES
By Richard Castle
Copyright ABC Studios
Published by Hyperion

Genre: Crime Drama

The third book in the Nikki Heat series. A priest is found tortured and murdered…in a bondage club. What was he doing there, and who was he with? Most of all, why?

This is a puzzling case, but Nikki is distracted. Rook has been away on assignment, unable to contact her. Or is he unwilling? The tabloids show him at a hotel with a stunning woman. And still, Heat’s phone doesn’t ring.

Captain Montrose, Nikki’s boss and mentor, is behaving strangely. He appears to have secret knowledge about the priest’s case, but he isn’t sharing. Then he gives Nikki orders that steer her away from answers in the case. What is he hiding?

More bodies pile up, and someone is following Heat. Is it connected to the case, or is something else going on?

By this point in the series, the characters are well-developed enough that we can easily separate them from the TV series characters. There are still many parallels between the two. Heat and Beckett may be sisters in blue, but they are very different people. Since Heat’s cases don’t have to be solved in 45 minutes, they twist and turn and run off in false directions much more than Beckett’s do. Which makes them even more satisfying to solve.


Book borrowed from the Indiana Free Library, Indiana PA.

NAKED HEAT by Richard Castle

NAKED HEAT
By Richard Castle
Copyright ABC Studios
Published by Hyperion

Genre: Crime Drama

Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook broke up. The murder of a muck-racking gossip columnist brings them back together…on the job.

The back-stabbing gossip columnist was stabbed in the back. Fitting, but Nikki has to find out who did it. Before she can, someone steals the body. Against her will, Nikki admits she needs Rook’s connections to figure this one out. And Rook has some interesting connections in the underworld.

Bodies pile up. A star athlete with a grudge and a stalker, an estranged daughter for the columnist, and a cowboy who likes to carve people up. When the cowboy traps Rook and Heat in Rook’s apartment and tries to practice his skills on them, it become very personal.

Then a young pop singer is pulled into the mix. What happens to her is hard for Nikki to handle, but the case moves on.

An old boyfriend of Nikki’s comes back into the picture. Does Petar have something to do with the murders? Or is he the solution to Nikki’s attraction to Rook?

Another twisting, turning murder investigation. Nothing is ever simple in Heat’s life. If it was, why would we keep reading? But you will keep reading, because you have to know how it turns out.


Book purchased from Book of the Month Club. Review by Audrey Shaffer.