Heat Rises by Richard Castle

Title: Heat Rises
Author: Richard Castle
Publisher: Hyperion
Publication Date: September 20, 2011
Reviewer: Elisa

Summary: Fast-paced and full of intrigue, Heat Rises pairs the tough and sexy NYPD Homicide Detective Nikki Heat with hotshot reporter Jameson Rook in New York Times bestselling author Richard Castle's most thrilling mystery yet.
The bizarre murder of a parish priest at a New York bondage club opens Nikki Heat's most thrilling and dangerous case so far, pitting her against New York's most vicious drug lord, an arrogant CIA contractor, and a shadowy death squad out to gun her down. And that is just the tip of an iceberg that leads to a dark conspiracy reaching all the way to the highest level of the NYPD.
But when she gets too close to the truth, Nikki finds herself disgraced, stripped of her badge, and out on her own as a target for killers, with nobody she can trust. Except maybe the one man in her life who's not a cop: reporter Jameson Rook.
In the midst of New York's coldest winter in a hundred years, there's one thing Nikki is determined to prove: Heat Rises.

Review: This is the third book by fictional TV character Richard Castle from the show Castle. Like the previous books, they pull situations and character relationships from the show into the novel. There are inside jokes and funny bits that Castle manages to insert, sometimes making me roll my eyes, which is just like the show! So if you like the show, and/or you like to read mysteries, you might like these books.
Castle’s Rook and Heat steam off the page. Their relationship works, it’s sweet and they make a good team. The layers to the mystery are difficult to peel back as roadblocks are thrown at every curve but Heat and Rook dig deeper and call in favors from people they can trust.
It ends with a shootout and some arrests and Heat kicks booty. But it is bittersweet as lives have been lost and people hurt. I am excited for the next book to see how Castle handles interpreting Season 4 into his novel. Good stuff. Because I love the show and these characters and basically think anything Nathan Fillion is involved in is awesome, I give the book 4 stars.