Naked Heat

I'm going to preface this by saying Monkey and I are *huge* Castle fans. We watch every episode and giggle for hours over the jokes. So I'm going into this review with that in mind.

I listened to Heat Wave as an audiobook a few months ago. That was an experience I thoroughly did not enjoy. The narrator was absolutely grating, and the whole tone of the book was ruined because of it. Because the narrator attempted to be so... gritty, the entire novel had a depressing, anti-climatic feel to it, rather than the light-hearted humor that peaks through even in the most serious episodes of the television show. Consequentially, I actually read this books.

Naked Heat was a bit better than the last book. The plot was intersting, and there was slightly better humor in this book. One thing I *adored* was that you got a glimpse of "Castle's" writing process in the show- he acts out a scene written in the book. I zoomed through this book, full throttle, and ultimately, decided that it wasn't bad.

It certainly wasn't great though. Again, it lacked the silliness that I love about the show, and that is entirely unrealistic in my opinion if it were supposedly written by Castle. I think, ultimately, I've decided that I enjoy the concept of the books. I love that these are novels "written" by a fiction TV show character about another fictional TV show character. I really enjoy the mystery aspect of the books themselves. But the writing just falls flat. It's the worst sort of flat charcters, utterly engaging and completely, well, boring. I just couldn't care about Nikki or Jameson. It's like it's the TV show, devoid of all of the loveable characteristics.

The lack of likeable characters is one of the reasons I don't enjoy shows like CSI. I want a character I can enjoy and commentary to liven up the mystery. Even true crime shows like Snapped and Dateline do a great job of livening up the players involved. This story was just too much like CSI. The characters were complete shells, nothing more than props for the mystery. As creative as the mystery is, I just can't enjoy it.

I fully intend to read the next book in the series. I'm hoping that as the series progresses, the novels improve as well. A lot of my issue is that I'm looking for great writing and characterization, like you see on the show, and instead I'm left with a dry murder mystery without much flavor.

(2/5 stars)