Naked Heat

The second book by fictional author Richard Castle, this one is longer and a little more complicated. After her profile (written during the first book) Nikki Heat now has a level of fame in New York and is getting recognized. The murder victim this time is famous too, a gossip columnist named Cassidy Towne with many celebrity enemies. That makes this case a lot more high profile.

I don't know if the ghostwriter behind this is the same as the first book. I guess there is no easy way to tell but I'd say it's highly likely. It certainly feels like a direct continuation from Heat Wave. The book characters are starting to diverge more from the TV characters they're based on, but there are still plenty of moments lifted from Castle's experiences in the TV series which keep it linked. Of course if you'd not seen the show you would miss those but that's just a little extra fun. You could easily enjoy these books without having seen the TV series.

Admittedly these are only really clever marketing gimmicks for the show. For example the episode shown the day before this came got to mention that the book is out tomorrow, in character. Still it's good quality marketing and good fun too. Here's hoping Castle get renewed for season 4 and we get a book 3 in between.