Naked Heat by Richard Castle, 2012, Hyperion Books, $24.99, hardbound, 290 pages. Category/Genre: police procedural. Cover: good except Heat's neck is way too thick. Where we got it: bought it. Where you can get it: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million.
Written by Richard Castle, the fictional author on ABC's Castle, this book even includes a blurb on Castle (Nathan Fillion), as if he were a real person.
NYPD detective Nikki Heat is reeling from the notoriety she's gained since the publication of Jameson Rook's article about her. Rook and Heat used to be lovers, but that ended three months ago. Now Heat gets a shock when she comes across Rook at a crime scene.
The body is that of Cassidy Towne, gossip columnist for the New York Ledger. Towne was stabbed in the back. Rook, who's been shadowing Towne for another article, arrived on scene before police did. To Heat's dismay, Rook is going to ride along with her on the case in exchange for his release of sources and insight into Cassidy Towne.
But Heat has more problems than her love life. Towne's body is stolen before the ME can take a look at it, and Heat discovers Towne had a long list of enemies. Chester Ludlow, an ex-congressman, looked into taking a hit out on Towne; Towne had an estranged daughter, Holly Flanders, who has threatening letters to Towne, and who may be Ludlow's daughter, as well; and ball player Toby Mills broke into Towne's apartment because Towne printed a picture and the address of Mills' new house, which led a stalker to Mills' family.
At last, Heat and Rook locate Towne's body, but the questions keep piling up.
There's a heart-pounding scene in which Heat is knocked out, restrained, and then interrogated by an unknown assailant, and Castle keeps the pace moving throughout the book. He excels at fight scenes, sex scenes, and emotional turmoil.
Note: strong language and sexual situations.
If you like this one, try: Heat Wave by Richard Castle.
'Defiance: Brothers in Arms,' 2013, SyFy Channel. Written by Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer. Directed by Andy Wolk. Starring Grant Bowler, Julie Benz, and Stephanie Leonidas. Rated TV-14 for language and violence. Airs 9.00 p.m. Mondays on SyFy Channel, or catch up on full episodes at http://www.syfy.com/rewind/.
In this episode, a man from Nolan's (Grant Bowler, pictured, third from right) past comes to Defiance. The man, Eddie Braddock (Rob Stewart) is a bounty hunter come to claim one Paul Maddis (Daniel Kash), a Castithan war criminal. But there's a hitch: Mayor Rosewater (Julie Benz, pictured, third from left) wants to deliver Maddis to the Earth Republic in exchange for rights to a railway system.
Then Maddis escapes (with help; the episode doesn't tell from whom), and all bets are off. He goes to Datak Tarr (Tony Curran, pictured, far left) for help, but Tarr wants nothing to do with him, so Maddis forces the issue.
Trouble is also brewing on the romantic front: Irisa (Stephanie Leonidas, pictured, second from right) refuses Tommy's (Dewshane Williams) advances, and Kenya (Mia Kirshner, pictured, center) is getting antsy about her relationship with Nolan.
Then there's the artifact and the ex-mayor's interest in it . . .
A good episode with a little more insight into Nolan's past as well as a teaser about Doctor Yewll's (Trenna Keating) past. We do have one major complaint about the series so far (and our brother has mentioned this, as well): the writers are taking too long to explain things, like exactly how rollers get around when Earth has been practically destroyed. We don't think it's right for them to expect us to play the Defiance game or look it up online; the show should stand on its own.
But we're still looking forward to the next episode, scheduled to air in two weeks.
Well, we didn't much care for 'Chicory Up' by Irene Radford, so we quit reading that and went on to 'The Anatomist's Wife' by Anna Lee Huber. So far it's good; we hope it will continue to be as the book progresses, and that we'll have discovered a new author (this is Huber's debut novel).
