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Publication Order of Nikki Heat Books

First appearance of Michael Connelly as himself, a friend and poker buddy of Rick Castle. He would appear, as of August 2015, twice more. The saying goes that art imitates life and in this case I’m very glad it does because it has brought us the wonderful world of Nikki Heat from the fantastic mind of none other that my favorite mystery writer, and occasional poker buddy Richard Castle.-Thomas Wilkerson, Modern Lit Magazine March 19th, 2012. Every now and again Richard Castle gets together with his literary friends to play poker and talk shop. Real life authors James Patterson, Steven J Cannell, Dennis Lehane and others. All the episodes featuring writers' games have 'Death/Dead' in the title. Richard Castle is the darling of the New York mystery scene and has been for the last ten years. He first broke into the field of mystery writing with In a Hail of Bullets, the winner of the Nom DePlume Society’s Tom Straw Award for Mystery Literature, though he is probably best known for his Derrick Storm series that ended four years ago.

Publication Order of Derrick Storm Books

Publication Order of Derrick Storm Graphic Novels

An author with a twist, Richard Castle, played by Nathan Fillion, is a fictional character and also a star of the ABC series, Castle. In this series, Richard is a novelist who helps the New York Police Department solve murder crimes. The real mystery is who the actual writer or writers are. Nathan attends book tours, signing as Richard Castle, but where the novels actually come from is unknown. There are rumors, however, that Tom Straw and Brad Parks may be two of the writers contributing to Richard Castle’s success. In real life, Castle has his own website, and all of the novels from the series are actual novels that have been published; all of which claim Richard Castle as the writer.

Richard lives in New York City with his mother Martha; his daughter, Alexis; and is CIA operative who goes by the alias Jackson Hunt. His original name was Richard Alexander Rodgers, however, when he became a writer he changed it to Richard Edgar Castle, in honor of the great Edgar Allan Poe. Richard was firm from the beginning about taking an active role in raising his daughter due to the abandonment issues he faced from his own father not being in the picture and being raised by a nanny. Alexis, is portrayed as being somewhat more mature than her father leaving the question of who is raising who.

The Castle Library

As mentioned above, to take this series a step farther, Castle producers took the “ Murder She Wrote ” approach and published actual novels based on the novels Richard wrote in the series. This peaked the interests of several viewers and also brought in another source of revenue. The Castle Library consists of twenty six (26) best sellers. Richard’s very first novel, In a Hail of Bullets, was written during his college years in a bathroom stall at a bar. It was rejected several times prior to Black Pawn finally publishing it; at which point it became a best seller. This novel won the Nom-DePlume Society’s Tom-Straw-Award for Mystery Literature.

The Storm Series

Richard Castle is mostly popular due to his Derrick Storm and Nikki Heat series. In the first of the Derrick Storm series, Gathering Storm, Derrick Storm, is asked to protect the Swiss Ambassador’s daughter from a KGB agent who is known for killing his victims with an undetectable poison. In Unholy Storm, Derrick is hired by a prestigious French family to hunt down the person who murdered their daughter and four other victims. Storm’s Last Stand, tells the story of how Derrick has to work with people from his past in order to solve the mystery of a mutual friend’s death. In Storm Season, Derrick is pushed further into what should have been a standard investigation after bugging the hotel suite of an African head of state and hearing a woman’s terrifying scream over the wire. In Storm Rising, Derrick teams up with a jewel thief named Bentley Siver to bring down a Parisian thief. Storm Warning takes Derrick on an investigation to find the murder of his close friend, Attorney Sam Strummel. Storm’s Break tells how Derrick fights to stop the Panama kingpin from human trafficking runaway teenage girls. In Storm Fall, Derrick has to solve the-mystery of who is sabotaging his live and ends in the unexpected, supposed, death of this character.

Rick Castle Poker Buddies

The Heat Series

Rick Castle's Poker Buddies

The Heat series tells the story of Nikki Heat, a fictional character based on one of the “ real life ” fictional characters in the show, Detective Kate Beckett. Thanks to his friendship with the mayor, Richard gets to ride along with detective Beckett and solve crimes. He then bases the Heat novels off of his investigations with Detective Beckett. In the first novel of this series, Heat

Wave, Nikki Heat is put on the case when a New York real estate tycoon plunges to his death, and fingers point to a surviving trophy wife with a past. In her next story, Naked Heat, Nikki investigates the murder of the gossip columnist, Cassidy Towne. In, Heat Rises, Nikki has to solve the mysterious murder of a parish priest at a New York bondage club. Nikki teams up with Jameson Rook to solve the murder of a woman that ties in with the murder of Nikki’s own mother. In the final chapter of the Heat series, Deadly Heat, Nikki and Jameson pursue the former CIA station chief that was responsible for the murder of Nikki’s mother.

Stand Alone Novels

Richard has also written several stand alone novels. Death of a Prom Queen is a murder mystery starring Cassie Evans, valedictorian of her high school in the small town of Saltee, North Carolina. As Cassie’s classmates are being killed off, Cassie has to discover who the killer is before she ends up being the only one to live to graduation. Flowers-for-Your-Grave tells how Leroy Fine attempts to crack the case of the “Florist” a serial killer, in order to gain back everything he has lost.

In Hell Hath No Fury Adam Parel moves his family to the remote town of Jessup to finish his first novel, and while he is there he unravels the mystery of an obsessive cult and their connection with the people going missing. In A Skull at Springtime, Rachel Lyons, a student trying to pay her way through college, discovers a field of corpses, and has to escape back to civilization before she is the next to die. At Dusk We Die tells the story of how small-town Ben Meltzer has to take his family and flee from home after the Satan’s Creed, a gang of biker-riding vampires ravages his town to feed. In When it Comes to Slaughter, the only two police officers, Chief Derek Olson and Deputy Ana Ruiz, in the small town of Fair Haven Vermont, have to uncover who or what is behind the brutal murders of two families. A Rose Forever After, tells of how Sister Mary Grace investigates the murders of the girls of the Blessed Sacrament School for Girls, when their bodies turn up in shallow graves holding red roses.