Review: HEAT WAVE

Heat Wave by Richard Castle
Book 1 of the Nikki Heat series
Read by Johnny Heller
Genre: crime fiction
Format: paperback & audiobook

About Heat Wave:

A New York real estate tycoon plunges to his death on a Manhattan sidewalk. A trophy wife with a past survives a narrow escape from a brazen attack. Mobsters and moguls with no shortage of reasons to kill trot out their alibis. And then, in the suffocating grip of a record heat wave, comes another shocking murder and a sharp turn in a tense journey into the dirty little secrets of the wealthy. Secrets that prove to be fatal. Secrets that lay hidden in the dark until one NYPD detective shines a light.

Mystery sensation Richard Castle, blockbuster author of the wildly best-selling Derrick Storm novels, introduces his newest character, NYPD Homicide Detective Nikki Heat. Tough, sexy, professional, Nikki Heat carries a passion for justice as she leads one of New York City's top homicide squads. She's hit with an unexpected challenge when the commissioner assigns superstar magazine journalist Jameson Rook to ride along with her to research an article on New York's Finest. PulitzerPrize-winning Rook is as much a handful as he is handsome. His wise-cracking and meddling aren't her only problems. As she works to unravel the secrets of the murdered real estate tycoon, she must also confront the spark between them. The one called heat.

Source: Info in the About Heat Wave was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6566722-heat-wave on 14/02/2013.

Review:

Okey, so I only bought this book because I am a Castle TV show fan. At first I was disappointed that the book read uncannily like an episode of the Castle TV show. But, then, I should have known that for the simple reason that the TV series practically said so in various episodes all through out the first three seasons with lots of spoillers. So really, I know exactly what to expect, I was just in denial... Then the book veered off from the TV series and became an alternate story to the show. That was when it got interesting! I'm not going to give out spoillery stuff so you'll have to guess that yourself, or read the book, if you haven't guessed it already. What I do like in both the book and the TV show is the romantic angle the story takes! Like the kiss that Richard Castle and Detective Beckett shared in Season 3! As much as I am a Castle fan girl, I still find that I needed little breaks from the book and I blame this on the not-so-stellar story telling quality. It is good enough, but it is not a masterpiece. Whoever is the real life person who wrote this book hiding behind Richard Castle, did not have James Patterson's compelling author's voice. But despite with that kind of story telling quality, I still liked it that the book gave me an alternative scenario to a well-loved story. I love alternative scenarios! I sometimes play it in my head. And here we are, it is being handed to me ready-made on a silver platter! Having said that, the alternate story was not much to my liking though... it felt flat.... Somehow there wasn't that much emotion in it as there is in the Castle show.

I have to say that the narrator, Johnny Heller, sounds awfully like Nathan Fillion in the Castle TV show. Or maybe it was just me being a Castle fanatic... I don't know anymore... Anyway, that makes him automatically likeable to me. However, for all his similarity to Nathan Fillion, I still find myself needing little peeks into the paperback to understand the story more fully. The words are clear, so I think it is more like... that he reads a bit too rapidly for me. Or it could also be that I needed a little slag time to digest the words and absorb the story. Either way, the fact remains that the paperback was required to read along with the audiobook in my case.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 3
Character development = 3.5
Story itself = 3
Ending = 3
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 2
Pace = (6.5 hours of listening time)
Narrator = 3.5

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 cherries