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Castle Book Review: A Bloody Storm

“Let’s begin with the most obvious question: Where is the gold?”

Like A Raging Storm, this part of our Derrick Storm adventure starts off exactly where the last part ended. Shots are ringing out; our hero is wounded and April Showers is in a car with even more shots being fired.

This installment expands the story, taking Storm and Showers to the former Soviet Union block while they hunt for hidden gold. In addition, there is a bit of tension as it becomes obvious that one of the members of the team with whom they are working is responsible for what happened in Tangiers, the operation that went so horribly wrong and for which Storm feels so responsible that he comes out of hiding at the beginning of part one.

There isn’t much more I can add to the two previous reviews I have written about this series. Unfortunately, this is the weakest of the three. The story is contrived and forced and the bad guys are so obvious from the onset that the reveal is almost a relief.

Several other things bothered me about this one as well. There is a lot of repetition in the beginning in which the author is re-telling sections of both the Brewing and the Raging Storms. This is all right if one is reading these books a month apart, but I read them all together for this final review and found myself skipping forward.

The author has obviously never spent any time in England. The details are all wrong and the language, especially the English slang, is used incorrectly. Very often, I am able to overlook this kind of thing, but it was so badly used that I found it jarring.

This book could have done with a good editor. There are several instances of words being missed all together. At one point, Showers is referred to as Flowers. But my personal favorite, and the one that made me laugh out loud was, “He peed over the jagged surface.” Ah, for want of the letter r…

Finally, the story ends with a semi-cliffhanger, something that tends to annoy me when reading a book like this. My cynicism kicks in and I suspect the publisher of ensuring sales of the next Derrick Storm novel. Unfortunately, it won’t be the story or the writing that will bring me back.

A disappointment after the first two.

ChrisB is a freelance writer who spends more time than she ought in front of a television screen or with a book in her hand.

4 comments:

  1. Did you read a hardcover/paperback or an e-book?

    The only e-book I purchased was "A Stitch in Time", and I was appalled at the typos and mangled grammar. Looking at reader reviews, someone did a sloppy conversion from the (physical) book to get it online, and the publisher never bothered to get it corrected.

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  2. Mark -- this series was only published as an e-book. Again, my cynicism kicks in and I am convinced that this book was written and released very quickly to continue the money making machine over the summer.

    It's a shame about the third part because the first two were fun, if not great literature.

    I would recommend the Nikki Heat books. Much better written.

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  3. Thanks ChrisB.

    I have the first two Heat books (one as paperback, one hardcover), and just assumed that the Storm books were also physically published. But I haven't finished reading the first one (yet)...

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  4. Marc,

    The first Derrick Storm novel was adapated into a graphic novel and the second one has also and that graphic novel will be released soon.

    These three new Derrick Storm e-books feature the return of Derrick Storm after Richard Castle had apparently killed him in the last Derrick Storm novel, Storm Fall.


    There are 4 Nikki Heat novels, Heat Wave, Naked Heat, Heat Rises, and Frozen Heat due in September. And I agree with Chris B, the Nikki Heat novels are written better. More than likely they are written by Castle's poker partners.

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