- ISBN-13: 9781401324902
- Publisher: Hyperion
- Publication date: 5/21/2013
- Pages: 320
With the help of a beautiful and mysterious foreign agent - with whom Storm is becoming romantically and professionally entangled - he discovers that Volkov's treachery has embroiled a wealthy hedge-fund manager and a U.S. senator. In a heated race against time, Storm chases Volkov's shadow from Paris, to the lair of a computer genius in Iowa, to the streets of Manhattan, then through a bullet-riddled car chase on the New Jersey Turnpike. In the process, Storm uncovers a plot that could destroy the global economy - unleashing untold chaos - which only he can stop.
Hello, friends. I have been long away.
I have a good reason, I swear. I entered grad school in the fall and it's been absolutely insane. I finished one book the first week that school started and haven't had time to read for pleasure since. That is a killer. But I made my fabulous return, so no worries.
I make my stupendous return with Storm Front by Richard Castle. But wait, isn't Richard Castle a fictional character played on Castle by the effervescent Nathan Fillion? Why, yes, gentle reader, it is. Hyperion has been releasing tie-in books with the TV show written and designed as if they were really written by Castle himself. Having read the first of the Nikki Heat series, I have to say that the writing in the first full novel of the Derrick Storm books (first and possibly only? I don't know) was not quite up to par. It got better the more the story wraps you up, but I noticed two chapters being with "He could only be described as..." which is a) amateur and b) repetitive. And that was upsetting. A few other typos as well which I am apparently becoming hypersensitive to.
The story was fun and a wild ride, but it wasn't surprising. In fact, halfway through the book you knew who the culprit was and actually...I kind of liked him. Which was the intent, I'm sure. The villain was delusional, which was a delight, but not really. I liked my bad guys to be actually cunning, not just super violent and wildly unrealistic in their expectations. There was a Chinese agent that was absolutely fun as well. All in all, actually, the characters were great, even if only a little background was given. Always humorously delivered, they were fleshed out enough to get an idea of who they were and their role to play, however brief, and to give you a little chuckle.
Derrick Storm himself was James Bond and Jason Bourne all rolled up into one fantastical package. He could only be described as ruggedly handsome, you see. He had gadgets out the wazoo and the ability to throw a molotov cocktail into a hole in the windshield of a moving vehicle while hanging out of the window of a Jag missing its two back tires. And if that's not a super agent, then I don't know what is. Despite the fact that he's not really an agent.
It was also fun to see that while the characters in Nikki Heat are the thinly veiled characters from the show, the characters in the Storm novels have the names of the characters in the show but play different roles. If you didn't know it was a tie-in, this would probably smack you in the face with it. Which does create a conundrum since Castle supposedly wrote the Storm novels before he met the NYPD team. Come on, Hyperion, enough with the games. Step up your accuracy game.
Overall: B
Major points for being a quick read and a good time, but minus points for being kind of juvenile. It did do a good job of explaining the economic aspect of the world-ending investigation, which I would not have gotten if a five year old couldn't understand it. So good job, "Castle."
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