Whispers of the Dead

February 15, 2018
An investigator with a unique and invaluable skill leads an elite team on the hunt for a serial offender known as The Ice Box Killer.When FBI Special Agent and hard-boiled narrator Magnus "Steps" Craig (Collecting the Dead, 2016) was 8 years old, he died and was brought back to life. Ever since then, he's had the ability to see an aura, a "shine," which, unique as a fingerprint, reveals an individual's identity. While it's essential to his detection, it's not admissible as evidence. On a tip from a local detective, Steps' partner, Jimmy Donovan, brings him to a bloody crime scene near Bellingham, Washington, with no explanation. The body of Krystal Ballard has been stabbed 11 times, a clear case of overkill. Her ex-husband, Archie, has been arrested, but Jimmy thinks he's innocent. One look at Archie and then the crime scene, and Steps nails the true killer. Then the duo is summoned to El Paso, where a pair of frozen feet have been found in the living room of controversial Judge Jonathan Ehrlich. In short order, the perp is dubbed "The Ice Box Killer." As they assemble a likely suspect list from Ehrlich's recent cases, Steps and Jimmy learn of more footless victims. Their list takes them to Tucson, Albuquerque, and Washington state, where they grill all manner of societal outsiders while colleagues in the lab narrow the field.With its deadpan banter and gritty narrative, Kope's second case has a Dirty Harry vibe and finds a sweet noir groove.

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February 19, 2018
Kope’s disappointing sequel to 2016’s Collecting the Dead takes Magnus “Steps” Craig, an FBI agent with the ability to see an individual’s “shine” (a unique color signature), and his partner in the elite Special Tracking Unit, Jimmy Donovan, to El Paso, Tex., where a federal judge has discovered a pair of severed feet packed in a cheap ice chest in his living room. Steps uses the shine of the person he dubs the Ice Box Killer to follow the culprit on a winding route that takes him and Donovan to the swamps of Louisiana and into the deserts of New Mexico. While Steps’s enhanced visual sense came across as an interesting, if not entirely believable, quirk in the previous book, this time it serves as a plot crutch that allows pieces of the narrative to fall too easily into place. Steps and Donovan both display questionable law enforcement knowledge throughout (e.g., they don’t know how many murders someone has to commit in order to be considered a serial killer), lending the whole novel an air of inauthenticity. Readers will hope that Kope, a Washington State police crime analyst, will put his expertise to better use next time.

Starred review from February 1, 2018

The FBI's Special Tracking Unit takes on the case of the Ice Box Killer, a murderer who delivers the feet of his victims to judges and lawyers in coolers. It's up to Jimmy Donovan, a seasoned FBI agent with a knack for profiling, and Magnus "Steps" Craig, a tracker with a special ability that allows him to see the movements of people in colors or "shine," to identify the victims and find the killer. This sequel to Kope's debut, Collecting the Dead, not only explores this sinister case but delves further into Steps's dilemma of living with a secret paranormal ability. He wants to let Diane (the unit's mother hen) and his girlfriend Heather in on his secret but is afraid of the consequences. Kope also richly fleshes out the growing bond between Steps and Jimmy. Their brotherhood is evident in their car radio sing-alongs and their conversations that mix humor, darkness, and random "plane talk" facts. VERDICT This novel more than lives up to the acclaimed first installment. Thriller devotees will devour this unpredictable mystery, wanting more from Steps and Jimmy. [See Prepub Alert, 10/16/17.]--Natalie Browning, Longwood Univ. Lib., Farmville, VA

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