Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Richard Castle’s newest novel has just killed its hero when New York detectives find murders staged like his books. Kate Beckett questions him, then Captain Roy Montgomery lets the writer consult on the case through Castle’s connection to the mayor. Castle’s hunches help expose the copycat’s story, and the reluctant partnership continues: he follows Beckett’s investigations for a new heroine, Nikki Heat, while learning that her careful questions and experience matter more than his theatrical guesses.
Their cases take them through private schools, city politics, high society and a kidnapping, giving Castle a view of the work beyond the crime scenes that inspired his fiction. Beckett keeps her personal life guarded, though a case involving a woman who vanished years earlier sends them back through an old missing-person investigation, and her former boyfriend, FBI agent Will Sorenson, returns when a young child is abducted. Castle’s curiosity can irritate Beckett, but his willingness to question an easy explanation repeatedly helps the team find a better one.
The season’s last case brings Castle and Beckett to a murdered plastic surgeon whose patients, associates and secret work create several competing leads. While Beckett stays with the investigation, Castle quietly asks a forensic expert to review the decade-old murder of her mother, despite her earlier objections. The new examination suggests the killing may not have been random, giving Castle a reason to keep digging. Beckett has not yet learned what he found, and the person behind her mother’s death remains unidentified.