Nikki Heat series by Richard Castle
I
had some trouble getting into this series. My mistake was starting with the second book instead of the first. Without knowing the characters, I kept confusing them, in my head, with the Castle characters. There are a LOT of similarities, but the differences were jarring. I decided this series wasn’t for me.
Then the publisher offered me the fourth book. I decided to go back to the beginning and read it right. So I picked up the first and third book from the library, and read through. Just like most series, they’re much better when you read them in order!
Audrey
HEAT WAVE
By Richard Castle
Copyright ABC Studios
Published by Hyperion
Genre: Crime Drama
If you’re a Castle (the TV series) fan, keep in the front of your mind that this is the book that Richard Castle wrote, based on Beckett and her coworkers. Until you get into it, keep reminding yourself that this is NOT Castle and Beckett. Also, the TV show is from Castle’s point of view, and the books are from Nikki’s.
Nikki Heat is a NYPD homicide detective. Against her will, she is assigned a ride-along; superstar magazine journalist Jameson Rook. Rook is doing an article on NYPD detectives, and the best way to find out what they do is to be there with them. No matter how much he annoys Heat…or attracts her. Because she’s struggling with both emotions.
A wealthy man falls from a 6th story balcony. His trophy wife insists that he didn’t jump. Looking at the scene in his apartment, Nikki and her crew agree. While they’re still investigating the scene, the wife is attacked. Nikki catches the attacker, and he admits he’s been having an affair with the trophy wife, who stood him up that very day…the same time her husband was killed.
Cut and dried, right? Murders are never that simple in Nikki Heat’s life. Add in a failing business, another lover for the wife, a bookie with a violent sidekick, art theft and forgery. The dead bodies, suspects, and additional crimes keep piling up.
Along with all of this, Nikki is struggling with the memory of her mother’s murder 10 years ago, and her growing attraction to the annoying Rook.
Yes, Nikki gives in to Rook in the first book, unlike Beckett. But then this was written by Castle, so it’s his fantasies that take precedence.
Once I got past the Heat/Beckett Rook/Castle comparison, I enjoyed the book. Not the best crime drama I’ve ever read, but still a good one.
Book borrowed from the Indiana Free Library, Indiana PA.
Reviews on the rest of the series coming soon.
In book four of the series, we’re getting in deep. The body of an unidentified woman has been found stuffed inside a suitcase, and left in a freezer truck. An unusual case, but a clue ties the murder to the shocking, unsolved murder of Heat’s mother, ten years ago. The cold case is reopened, and Heat’s crew works the murders together. Solving one has a chance of solving them both.
