This is book 1 of the "Nikki Heat" series.

This note does not contain major spoilers for the book.

An amusing bit of promotion—these are allegedly the novels written by the TV character Richard Castle (from the show Castle) based on his ride-alongs with Detective Beckett. His character Nikki Heat is based on Beckett, and she does not always make Beckett comfortable on the show. I haven't happened to hear who actually wrote this one.

This is the first, so it's creating the characters and all that, which is no doubt more troublesome when there are television executives involved in the approval process. It's not wonderful, but it was kind of amusing, at least for those who have watched the show (and I have, some).

In this one there is in fact a heat wave engulfing the city, which makes everything more complicated (and uncomfortable), and causes a power outage, etc. The detective in these is even stupider than Castle himself in the show, always walking into things where he can get hurt or even get other people hurt. He does show some signs of learning better just in this first book.