Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Book Review: Deadly Heat by Richard Castle


I really loved the Heat series, until now. No, I’m not saying that all of a sudden I’ve stopped enjoying the books; I’m only saying that Deadly Heat is so predictable that it just makes no sense.

It was the suspense and the mystery that kept the pages turning in the previous novels, and these two elements seem to have gone missing from the latest installment. What’s not missing is the humor, but is that enough to keep the reader going?

My first thought, as I finished reading, was that in here we have the same heroes, more or less the same storyline, but a different author, one that’s somehow clumsy, as they give away too many clues about most of the villains, and as a result, the expected reading pleasure is nowhere to be found – perhaps Heat can look for it.

When the readers embark on a journey with the words of an author as a vehicle, they expect to be thrilled, or feel simply excited, to get to know inside out the souls of the characters, good or bad, to seek and find all the hidden clues that may or may not lead them to solving the various riddles. Well, that doesn’t exactly happen here, and that’s a shame.

I don’t want to give away any clues because that could ruin the fun for some people but, I will say though, that if the answers are going to be so obvious in almost every single question, then one shouldn’t even bother posing any questions at all.

But of course, not all is black. I’ve already said the humor is quite good and the interactions between Rook and Heat are great too; their chemistry is pretty much alive. They could do with a breath of fresh air though, something that will turn the spark into a flame again. As for the action, that’s good too, but it seems to me as though the first couple of episodes of the Castle TV Series would emerge as the big winners in a possible Mexican standoff.

I give the book three stars out of five, because no matter how hard I try I can’t say that it’s a bad book; it’s just bad if compared to the its predecessors. I hope the next one will be better and thus able to restore my faith in the power of team ‘Heat and Rook’ to impress.

Reviews of other book by same author:

Frozen Heat
A Bloody Storm
A Brewing Storm
A Raging Storm

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