**Spoilers ahead**

Monday night’s episode of the ABC crime series “Castle,” the second of its fourth season, signified a return to the show’s winning, quirky formula after the near-stumble of its season premiere. I’ve praised “Castle” in the past, and though its third season’s finale gave cause for worry, the series’ most recent episodes provide an object lesson in entertainment programming, especially for genre writers.

For those who haven’t seen the series, “Castle” is a semi-comic police procedural about a bestselling mystery author, Richard Castle, who finds himself partnered up with a beautiful female police detective in Manhattan, Kate Beckett, to help solve crimes. The implausible premise is no impediment to enjoying the show, as its stars Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic are both a delight to watch as the central characters; their skill as performers is evident and easy to appreciate.

In addition, and even more importantly, the gaudy premise matches the show’s narrative style; it is a throwback to the great tradition of American surrealistic mysteries of the 1930s and ’40s. That’s a very important—and, alas, currently underappreciated—trend in mystery fiction exemplified by the writings of Ellery Queen (the truest master off the form), Fredric Brown, Anthony Boucher, Craig Rice, Hake Talbot, Joel Townsley Rogers, Herbert Brean, and the other great master of the form, John Dickson Carr (and these writers all owe a debt of gratitude to the earlier British crime fiction of G. K. Chesterton, the American Jacques Futrelle, and a few others). (more…)

Like the best works of popular culture, the ABC mystery-crime series Castle is both entertaining and edifying. It exemplifies an increasingly strong trend in the American culture: the use of grim, sensual, bizarre, disturbed, or perverse imagery and subject matter in works of popular art that promulgate positive values and attitudes.

Certainly Castle has plenty of immorality and other damaging personal behavior in evidence. Set in modern-day Manhattan, the series stars Nathan Fillion (Firefly) as wealthy mystery writer Richard Castle, who accompanies police detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic, The Spirit, Quantum of Solace) on homicide investigations in order to glean valuable real-life knowledge to use in his murder mysteries. The conceit is that Castle is able to get this kind of access because he is a friend of the mayor and many other highly influential people in the city. (more…)