It’s that time of year again. I’m starting to go through Castle withdrawal.
I usually buy the Nikki Heat books on my kindle when they’re available for about $5, but that never happened with this book, or if it did I missed it. I was even prepared to pay full price for the ebook by the time July rolled around, but for some reason the ebook is no longer available. So I had to go with a UK publisher to get a paperback copy of the book. Fortunately it delivered within a few days and I didn’t have to pay an arm and a leg.
I read these books, as mentioned, to help me get through my Castle withdrawal in the second half of the summer and because they’re fun, entertaining books that don’t require a lot of thinking. This book certainly delivered.
I was skeptical part way through the book because Nikki was acting irrationally and I wondered why the author would have her behave so out of character. Despite her constant insistence on using “beginner’s eyes” and keeping an open mind in her cases, she utterly refused to do that this time. The author did end up addressing that Nikki was dealing with tension in her relationship with Rook and the fact that she had finally solved her mother’s murder, so now she’s not quite sure what to do with herself, hence the acting out.
That mollified me somewhat, and Nikki did allow her detectives to follow another lead, but she never admitted that she was being narrow minded. I would have preferred if her first lead had turned out to be completely unrelated to the case and she had to admit she was wrong, but she never did.
I don’t want to like the portrayal of her relationship with Rook, but I think I have to. When they’re fighting, Nikki sends texts and leaves voicemails but refrains from saying things like “call me back” even though that’s what she wants to say. She’s afraid that would sound “too needy.” I just wanted to tell her to woman up and get over herself, but I have to admit it was in line with the character.
Beckett and Heat have always been commitmentphobes. Although Nikki jumped right into bed with Rook, it was a no-strings-attached deal early on, which kind of fits with Beckett’s refusal to have a relationship with Castle, even when she was clearly drawn to him. It took a near-death experience for Beckett to get with Castle and a similarly contrived, dramatic experience for Nikki to realize how much she needed Rook. I’m not a fan of the tool, but at least the creators of the show/books are staying consistent.
Another thing that I find entirely contrived and unbelievable (from the show, not the book) is the idea of anyone scoping out a detective to run for senator. They may both work in the public sphere, but there’s a huge difference between being a cop and being a politician and the move from one to the other makes no sense at all. That being said, I did appreciate Rook’s sudden “vision” of “Senator Heat.” I always like it when the book and show line up in little ways like that and it amused me, even if it did make me roll my eyes.
The book ends with Rook on bended knee asking Nikki to marry him. They cut off the book before we get Nikki’s answer, but come on! We know what her answer is going to be.
I never read a book’s acknowledgements section because it’s always full of people I don’t know who don’t mean anything to me. My one exception is the Castle books because Castle always mentions both the main characters of the show and the actors (by first name only). This one was particularly amusing because, due to Castle’s disappearance at the end of the season before this book was published, he didn’t write the acknowledgements section. A “junior editor” who remained anonymous wrote it using Castle’s notes because the author was “unavailable”. Again, I had to appreciate that little bit of consistency with the show. It was clever and amusing.
The other thing I usually look forward to in these books is a Firefly shout out. In past books, they’ve been very clever, including a pair of detectives named Malcolm and Reynolds. The shout out in this book existed, but it was lame and pretty disappointing. It had the feeling of an afterthought. Like an editor said “We need this somewhere in the book. Make it happen,” right before publication.
Speaking of feeling rushed, the book was not very well written. It had numerous cheesy lines and plenty of typos, but I realize they were trying to put together a 400+ page book, from concept to publication, in less than a year. That’s quite the workload, so I’ll let it slide.
What about you guys? Are there any other books out there you enjoy reading for their relationship to other media? I want to hear all about it in the comments!
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