VJ Books presents Richard Castle

Richard "Rick" Edgar Castle, is a fictional character portrayed by Nathan Fillion in the ABC crime series Castle.

As a promotion for the show, "Richard Castle's" (ghost-written) book Heat Wave was released in hardcover by Hyperion on 29 September 2009 and debuted at #26 on the New York Times bestseller list. In its 4th week on the list, Heat Wave broke into the top 10 as #6. Heat Wave was released in paperback on 27 July 2010 and debuted at #34 on the New York Times bestseller Paperback Mass-Market list. The novel also features a fictionalized version of the already fictional Richard Castle, aptly named "Jameson Rook," (the first name derived from the Irish whiskey, while the last name comes from the chess piece Rook which is also known as the Castle) who enters into a partnership with Heat that mirrors Castle's working relationship with Beckett.

In the TV series, "Castle" is an author of mystery fiction, with 26 bestsellers under his belt. His most popular works comprise a series starring "Derrick Storm," including the novels In a Hail of Bullets (winner of the Nom DePlume Society's Tom Straw Award for Mystery Literature), Gathering Storm, Unholy Storm, Storm's Last Stand, Storm Season, Storm Rising, Storm Warning, and Storm's Break; in the pilot episode, Castle attends a party for the release of the final book in the Storm series, Storm Fall, in which he kills off his protagonist after becoming bored with the character. He later reads from the novel before a book-signing. Patterson and Cannell both disagree with the decision, with Cannell claiming that he could have crippled Storm instead. Castle's other fictional books include Death of a Prom Queen, Flowers For Your Grave, Hell Hath No Fury, A Skull at Springtime, At Dusk We Die, When It Comes to Slaughter, and A Rose for Everafter.

After using his friendship with the Mayor to get partnered with NYPD detective Kate Beckett (under the pretense of conducting research for a new character), Castle plans a new series of novels starring a new detective based on Beckett. Toward the end of the second episode, the name of Beckett's literary alter-ego is revealed to be "Nikki Heat"; in the fourth episode, Beckett takes umbrage at the name- regarding it as a 'stripper name'- and insists that Castle change it, despite his proposing the book titles Summer Heat, Heat Wave, and In Heat.

Castle also plays regular poker games with fellow authors James Patterson, Stephen J. Cannell and Michael Connelly.