Heat Wave

It's all very meta. Let me attempt to explain. Castle is a TV series about a mystery writer named Richard Castle (played by Nathan Fillion). As research and inspiration for his new books he rides along with New York detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) and lends a hand, mostly. Those books as written by Richard Castle (complete with picture of Nathan Fillion) are available to us in the real world, the first of which is Heat Wave. In the book Jameson Rook is a magazine writer following detective Nikki Heat for an article on the NYPD.

This is not the first TV series with such meta-content. I know Lost did it with Bad Twin and I guess there will have been others I don't know about. It is the first I've read though, again thanks to Kindle. I probably wouldn't have got around to it otherwise, it's just so easy to order things for it. I presume it's ghost written by someone but I don't know who.

The story is a basic murder mystery (much less galaxy spanning than the last book I read). A dead body shows up and that's followed by suspects, interviews, investigations, fake art deals and police raids. It's a bit bizarre as at times it reads exactly like an episode of the TV series but then other times it's way off because it's only based on those characters (who are already fictional!). The big difference of course is that Rook and Heat get to hook up. Whereas Castle and Beckett can't because the TV series hangs on their chemistry and their will they/won't they relationship. Still well worth the read if you enjoy the series.