The actual text of Richard Castle's Heat Wave is a pretty standard light police dectective-centric murder mystery. Someone dies, attractive female detective is on the case, gets threatened herself, most clues are red herrings, and the murderer is eventually confronted and the attractive female detective prevails.
My experience reading Heat Wave last week was greatly enhanced by three things:
1) I have watched Castle, the TV show (for two episodes, and my mother keeps me updated).
2) I read blogs about books that occasionally contemplate things like voice and notice conceits of novelists whose fictional characters write their books (see, for instance, a discussion here on Wuthering Expectations about Fitzgerald's author-character, Nick Carraway, who wrote The Great Gatsby or the posts about Ferdinand Pessoa, who created at least three poet personas that wrote very different types of poetry)
3) Richard Castle wrote a personal note to The Mister on the cover page of the copy I read.
Richard Castle* is a character on the TV show Castle. He is a mystery writer in NYC who follows Beckett, a female detective, around. (He's also played by Nathan Fillion, a big plus in my estimation). Beckett is continually annoyed by the presence of Castle, but is very attracted to him. Heat Wave was one of his big breakthrough books.
So I knew going in to Heat Wave that the book was the shlocky product of a tv character. I did not know that Heat Wave was a barely fictionalized account of the relationship between Beckett and Castle (cleverly disguised as "Rook"). This allows the book to be far cheesier, and far more fun, than an average detective novel, because Heat Wave is Castle's fantasy of his life and relationship with Beckett. Rook, a pulitzer prize winning journalist, not a pulp novelist like Castle, has stamina and powers of attraction Castle could never muster. Castle's mother is an over-bearing soap-opera diva; Rook's mother has several Tonys. I can imagine Castle trying to use the book to impress Beckett. And Beckett muttering, "Oh please" and walking away.
Except, of course, that Castle and Beckett are themselves creations of some writer. And one doesn't know who actually wrote Heat Wave (I think Nathan did the book tour). Perhaps the same person who wrote his very complete wikipedia bio?
Altogether, silly fun made more fun by admiring the circularity of the invention. By the way, MiL and FiL, I think you'd like Castle.
*Also the name of The Mister's father-in-law, who, as it happens, gave him the book for Christmas.
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2 comments:
These books are obviously written in the right spirit. What fun!
Indeed, the whole thing is fun. Richard Castle may be no Ricardo Reis, and he's no Derrick Rook, but his book, like Reis's poems, is real, even if he's not. As a novel, Heat Wave is silly. As a contribution to a greater pop culture thing, it's brilliant.
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