(Written by Harriet Aden)

How can a fictional author write an actual book?? This question could be posed in regard to the book Heat Wave by Richard Castle…… fictional TV author on the ABC crime drama, Castle.

Although I don’t watch a lot of network programming, Castle caught my interest at its beginning. Nathan Fillion plays Richard Castle, a successful mystery novelist who has killed off his protagonist, Derrick Storm, and is looking for a new leading character. Through his friendship with the mayor, Castle is allowed to follow a team of NYPD detectives as they work major homicide cases.

The lead detective is Kate Beckett. She finds Castle very annoying and yet grudgingly comes to like him. In the course of the show, Castle creates a new leading character based on Beckett and named Nikki Heat. The book is mentioned throughout the season’s shows, and evidently was unveiled chapter by chapter on ABC.com.

Since I was unaware of this, seeing the hardcover book at the library desk was a shock for me. I took it home to read and found it parallels the TV series itself and was a quick enjoyable read.

In Heat Wave, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jameson Rook researches an article on New York’s Finest by tailing homicide detective Nikki Heat. The case in the book deals with the investigation into the murder of a New York real estate tycoon. There are plenty of suspects with motives, a record-breaking heat wave, and even an attack on the investigating detective. When a second murder occurs, Nikki Heat delves into the dirty little secrets of the wealthy to solve the case. I recently learned that a second novel is on the way and will help promote the new season of the TV series.

The novel/fictional author theme is intriguing. The novel Heat Wave carries the same theme as the TV show. The TV author is named Richard Castle, while the author in the book is named Jamison Rook ---chess anyone??.

In my attempt to discover who actually wrote Heat Wave, I found that everything credited Richard Castle – complete with the description of his “life” on the TV series. An article in a recent TV Week edition said that the author’s identity was a closely held secret, but that there was a clue in the fictional bio. It said that Castle won the Nom DePlume Society’s prestigious Tom Straw Award for Mystery Literature and the article’s author says Tom Straw is the name of an established Hollywood screenwriter. Since the book has been a real world hit, it doesn’t seem to matter who is the actual author.

I’ll be watching the TV series again and probably reading the book’s sequel. One of the reasons I enjoy the TV series, is that ABC has combined real and fictional characters -- Rick Castle hosts poker games with writer friends and these friends are real-life authors James Patterson, Steven Cannell and others. Though I don’t remember it, Jana Kehn from the library told me that this has happened before with the Murder She Wrote series starring Angela Lansbury. Making movies from books has been around for a long time, so I guess it’s no surprise that books can come from fictional characters on TV.