NEW GUILTY PLEASURE - NIKKI HEAT

I've been a fan of the TV show Castle for some time now, and I've finally broken down and bought my first Nikki Heat novel.  For those of you who are not fans, here's a guide.  'Castle' is about a writer who gets a gig following a female NYC homicide detective around to gather material for a series of novels he will base on her.  The series is as much about the evolving dynamic between Rick Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) as it is about the murders they solve.  New episodes air on ABC on Monday night, with reruns on TNT.  In any event, the fake writer (or the show's writer(s), anyway) has now written five real novels starring Detective Heat, and I have just finished my first - 'Heat Wave'  (It was also my first e-book, by the way.) 

One thing I'm puzzling over is whether the book would be as much fun without the images of the characters from the TV show.  It appears to be pretty well written, but I'm hardly a literary critic.  I would expect good writing, of course, from a show that features guest appearances by James Patterson and the late Stephen J. Cannell as Castle's poker buddies.  But the book was a hoot.

One of the images I had to choose in my head was who to visualize as Nikki Heat.  Let me explain.  In season 3 it develops that Hollywood is going to make Heat Wave into a movie, and the precinct is visited by the actress who will play Nikki, Natalie Rhodes (Laura Prepon).  During the course of the episode, Natalie gets progressively further into the character of Nikki, and into Beckett's head as well.  Here is a shot of the two of them.  That's Natalie as Nikki on the left, and Det. Beckett on the right.  Now as much as I love Beckett's character, I try to see Natalie when reading the book.

 
Did I say this was a hoot!

Plus the both of them are seriously hot!