Review: Heat Wave by "Richard Castle"

My husband gave me this book as a Christmas gift, since he knows I'm a big fan of ABC's show "Castle." It's based on the premise that a crime writer, Richard Castle, who has killed off his very popular character Derrick Storm and needs to create a new series, manages to finagle a favor out of the mayor and tag along with NYPD detectives to get fodder for his new books. He decides to base the female protagonist on the detective he shadows. The book Heat Wave is Castle's first novel featuring Nikki Heat, the character he created after working with the NYPD. The show took it one step further and actually wrote a novel based on the fictional character's fictional character. Talk about a story within a story!

I read the book over Valentine's Day weekend and, honestly, two weeks later? Can't remember what the storyline was. Some rich dude dies and they are trying to figure out who killed him. I think. Everyone's under suspicion, but only one of them could have done it. Dun dun DUN! Blah. Boring and already been done.

I do enjoy crime writing and mystery series, but I didn't LOVE this book. I feel bad saying that, because I wanted to. It was a gift from hubby, and I wanted to love it because he gave it to me. Also, I love the show. But the book was only so-so. It didn't pull me in as much as I would like. I kept feeling like a lot of the story and/or dialogue was stuff that was recycled from the show (whether it was or not). And I found that I wanted to be reading a story ABOUT Castle and Beckett, not a story BASED ON them. The dialogue was pretty cheesy and, without Nathan Fillion's tongue-in-beautiful-cheek delivery, it just doesn't work. Overall, it was okay, and I finished it, but I can't say it was earth-shattering. I'd give it two and a half out of five Whatevers. Good for people who LOOOOOVE the show and for those who can't pass up a police procedural, but I'd stick to a better-known writer than "Richard Castle" when reading in this genre.