BOOK REVIEW: HEAT WAVE BY RICHARD CASTLE

From Hyperion, cover artist(s) unknown

Okay, for those few out there that may not know the premise behind all of this; Castle is an entertaining series on the ABC television network about a famous mystery writer who, among other things, helps Detective Kate Beckett and her squad at the New York Police Department solve homicide cases.

One of the show's initial ideas was that author Richard Castle got permission to ride along with Beckett and company because he decided to use her as the inspiration for a new book series, which resulted in HEAT WAVE, released in 2009 between the first and second seasons of the program.

Detective Nikki Heat of the NYPD and her homicide investigating squad face a sweltering New York City summer, the death of a real estate mogul with suspects and alibis aplenty, and the unnecessary(?) presence of journalist Jameson Rook, assigned to write an in-depth article about her squad.

After reading the first novel, it is way too easy to draw parallels between book and television characters, especially when both follow similar background plot points regarding the main casts. Yet the book is more than capable of standing on its own merits. HEAT WAVE is also a guilty pleasure of enjoyment for both the casual reader and the long time mystery fan; especially because the novel took full advantage of the excellent opportunity to tell a more complete, detailed story outside the restrictive confines of an hour of commercial television.

In reel life, Richard Castle is the accredited author and, as a fan of both the book and television series, I will do nothing to discourage that premise.
For review purposes, I will note that in real life, the author(s?) remain anonymous, although actor Nathan Fillion sometimes makes appearances in character as Castle the author at book store signings and new release events.

I have also read NAKED HEAT, the second novel in this series. There are five to date, with a sixth scheduled for release this fall. That volume will be the subject of a future book review, but I look forward to reading the others as time permits.
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Lee Houston, Junior, one of the founders of this fine blog, is the Editor-In-Chief of The Free Choice E-zine and the writer/creator of Hugh Monn, Private Detective and Alpha the superhero.
When not busy writing, in what he laughingly calls his "spare" time, he wishes he had more spare time.
He maintains a presence on G+, Facebook, and his own writer's blog. His creative work can be found at Amazon.com and other outlets.

Year 15, Week 29, Day One (week 726)

Year 15, Week 29, Day One (week 726)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-09-14 Saturday

86 degrees at nine, 95 degrees at one, patchy clouds that faded out to blue sky just past half way above us. Sunny all morning until about three. Thunder burster hit at about five thirty.  It was calm in the morning and the winds started picking up in the afternoon. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

After breakfast we hit a few yard sales. Pickings were not spectacular. There was a number of things that would be nice to have but I would absolutely never use. 
At One yard sale, I picked up a twelve inch square by heavy two inch think block of Teak. The guy said he got them as cut-offs from a friend’s project. He used some in his own project and these were the last of them. It happened that he sold two earlier in the day so I got the last one. Now I have to figure out what to do with it. I have a problem of where I don’t want to waste really good wood so I will wait until I have the right project, which tends to be forever.....
At another yard sale, I picked up some little books. A small five book desk set of dictionary/thesaurus/spelling dictionary/ and so on. I handed that off to my new dad. I also got some famous quote booklets. 

12" square by thick 2" TEAK


Later in the day I went “yard sailing” at a local dollar store. I got some things I needed and some goodies too. 

After we got home, Mom decided to “trim” one of her trees. This Clerodendron had escaped the pot and went into the ground and has been going crazy. I dug out my Craftsman Saws-all and mom told me where to cut. I would then pull the branches out from the tangle of other branches. Mom would move them out of the way.
After we butchered the tree, I trimmed the branches into manageable sizes and mom took them out front. I kept a couple pieces of “trunk” where the largest was a little over two and a half inches across. I stuck them into the shed to dry. This is a soft wood. We had a number of branches split while working with them.
When we were done, I was wore out, sore, and soaking. That is a little tree. I can fit my hands around the actual trunk. All the branches that we cut expanded out from the trunk and wove in and out as they rushed to the sky. Most were less than a finger or thumb thickness


The remains of the tree.



cut branches pulled out of the way


Craftsman Saws-all. I like using this more than a chain saw when cutting wood.



The trimmings finally at the street.


The pieces I kept to turn into sawdust.....


I laid down for what was supposed to be a quick nap and woke three hours later. That killed he rest of the day. 

Tomorrow I am hoping to do some wood working. 
I will see what I actually do tomorrow.










Year 15, Week 29, Day Two (week 726)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-10-14 Sunday

94 degrees at noon, 96 degrees at three. Blue sky to the east, patching clouds to the west, the clouds faded out directly above me. Sunny all day. Nice breeze, but I ran the stand fan anyway. That helped a lot.

Last week, someone pointed out a web site in another language that had where they made crochet hooks out of tooth brushes. My browser translated the page but the pictures told the whole  the story in detail and the text added nearly nothing to it. Of course I have a bunch of tooth brushes that have not been tossed yet. 
The idea of using tooth brushes is that the handles are already comfortable to the hand. Instead of drilling the handle and inserting, gluing the crochet hook inside the handle, one can use the neck of the brush for the crochet hook. 
I brought the tooth brushes with me so I decided to give the idea a try. My brushes were rubberized plastic. It takes a different technique to work that then the more brittle plastics. 

The brushes I started with.

The bristles removed.


I took the five tooth brushes I had and sliced off the bristles. On the first tooth brush, I decided to round the slightly rectangular profile. Using a Dremmel, caving knife and lots of different grits of sand paper, I shaped the first tooth brush. The others were slightly more round and I decided not to care as much about the shape.


completed hook and original toothbrush. Note the rings on the shaft that I had to remove.


 I had two tooth brushes that had ribbing just before the end. The tests with the first tooth brush crochet hook told me that the more shaft you have the better. I carved off the ribbing trying to make it close to the same diameter as the beginning. It was slightly tapered.  After I finished each hook, I gave them a test. They actually work. 
Now my work is sloppier than I would like. With a round rod, it really does not matter where the gap of the hook is. I will need to work with these to see if the next ones I do will be better on an angle to the way you hold the hooks or not. 
These hooks need more clean up, adjustments, and polishing to be perfect them, but they are usable. For those who know hook sizes, these are about J to L sizes. 
To make perfect crochet hooks out of them, I would need to work out the best way to mount them in the lathe and make the shaft longer and remove the taper they added to it. I am thinking that would be more effort than it is worth. 
I will test them out some more. Emery cloth or some sort of scrubber should clean them up more. Filing and sanding will help shape them more. I used them to test a stitch I was curious about and while they are rough, they do work all right. Of course, the more they are used, the more polished they will end up being.


Finished crochet hooks


I was looking at the ladle I worked on last week. I decided that the walls are too thick. I have a choice of making the inside bigger, or making the outside smaller. What I am thinking to do is to adjust the shape of the outside so it is nicer, then work with the inside with grinding, knife and chisel to make ti match the outside with a thinner wall. 
Because I had a late start today, I did not have time to deal with it. Hopefully I will work with it next weekend. 

I will see what I do next weekend. 

Year 15, Week 28, Day One (week 725)

Year 15, Week 28, Day One (week 725)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-02-14 Saturday

94 degrees, some moisture during breakfast but after that, mostly clear and hot,. The clouds mostly stayed over the Everglades with thin edges coming directly above us. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

We hit a church yard sale early and even went back for a second look. I picked up a tiny bit of yarn and a coffee grinder. I did not need either. I looked at it more like a donation. 
I saw a lot of yard sales but I had something else to do with most of the morning.


yarn and yarn stretcher.



Coffee grinder

Last night my battery light came on. It would go off if I doubled my idle rpm. This morning, with that going wrong, things went really good. I did not hit any lights and the closest I came to stopping, about a mile from home, the charge looked good. I drove to my mom’s house and decided not to take the more wandering route that checks for any new yard sale signs out before I get to Mom’s but instead headed directly there. Again all lights green. 
When I took my foot off the gas to coast into my parking space, the engine died. I did not bother testing whether it would start. 
A bit later in the morning, we took my battery to the parts place I was hoped it would be the battery that was the problem since that is easier to deal with than an alternator. Darn, the battery was good. As I was buying the alternator, I was telling them about how inept I am at mechanics and there just happened to be a guy there who was a mechanic and was willing to come over and replace the alternator for me. 
In less than twenty minutes after he pulled up, he had swapped the alternator and had left to help a woman who had the same problem and her car died about two blocks from his shop. There was about six things I would have not known to do if I were to do it myself. It would have taken me about three hours. I could do it in about an hour now after I had seen it done. One thing was he had the right tools, and He had more strength to break free the first bolt that was put on with an impact wrench. After he was done, I started the engine and it was perfect. 

After a break and a nap, I headed down to Pearls Arts and Crafts. They are closing down their stores. This one has been there since I’ve been in Florida. Most of their stuff is for the professional artist.
Everything is 40% off or priced as marked. I walked through nearly all the isles to see what they had. They did not have yarn, and the types of paints in the colors I wanted to get, and they did not have blank greeting card stock. 
I did see some stuff I could use but will wait a while and then see what they are selling for. They had some good basswood in sheet stock and sticks. They also had some model railroading scenery stuff in one area and some “scale lumber” in the basswood section. I don’t have any time for model railroading right now so I could not see getting any. I have stuff from my last “blast” of model railroad structure and scenery making sitting around that needs to be used up.
One thing I THINK I have use for is they have the calligraphy pen tips. I have thought off an on to get a bunch of them, and then make my own handles out of various wood. I was not quite ready for them, though. 
The big problem is that I kept seeing things for arts and crafts that I am not doing right now, that I don’t have any time to do them even if they were not superceded by more important hobbies. I may go back next weekend and see what is going on.

I changed colors on a scarf I am working on. The first row was an orange red. The second color was a orange yellow. It was wider than the first. I shifted to an orange red. If you compare them in the sun, you will see a difference but in low light they are close enough. When I get that to the same size as the first color, I will have to decide if it is wide enough of should I do something else to make it wider. 

Between yard sailing, taking care of the truck and going to Pearls, and had a late lunch, there was no time to do much else. I hope to be able to get something done tomorrow.

I will have to see what tomorrow brings. 





Year 15, Week 28, Day Two (week 725)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
08-03-14 Sunday

85 degrees, cloudy, some wetness later in the day, no breeze until one of the storms approached. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach department of Tourism. 

I got to Mom’s house and settled down with the idea of doing something simple. I took my scorp set, which is a set of chisels that are pulled sideways rather than pushed down the length, and worked on the bowl of my ladle I have worked on this month. The scorp did some work on cleaning it up but I decided it was not going to pass muster. I found a rotary rasp I had was too bit. I dug out my dremmel and first removed the tear out caused by the chisel and to even out the sides and bottom. I then went to flap sanders to clean up the marks caused by the bit I used first. I then hand sanded with varying grades of sandpaper. There are still some dremmel grinding bit marks in it. 
I finally re-mounted the ladle on the lathe and adjusted the handle. I did not quite get the effect I was after, but was not about to do any more with it. I disk sanded the top until it was even and looked right, then shaped the outside to match the inside of the bowl. I got that were I wanted it and did some hand sanding. I finally soaked the ladle down. I will sand it one more time to remove the raised grain. I will call it done. This ladle is not exactly what I was after, but it came out pretty good. You can tell it was not factory made. 
These are kind of fun to make so I may well make more. 

I started working on my magic wands by trimming with a knife, but then the wind picked up and since the clouds were heading north, there was something dark to the south so I picked up. 

I hope to finish the wands next weekend. I have lots of wood waiting for the sawdust to be removed from them to see what is beneath the surface. 

I will see what I do next weekend.


roughed out bowl of ladle.

bowl set off center

Handle set offset.

Ladle set on lathe ready for turning handle 

Finished reshaped ladle handle.

Finished ladle

finished bowl.