{"id":1284,"date":"2018-12-31T16:34:34","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1284"},"modified":"2018-12-31T16:34:34","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:34:34","slug":"kope-whispers-of-the-dead_041518","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1284","title":{"rendered":"Kope, Whispers of the Dead_041518"},"content":{"rendered":"
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MYSTERY\/SUSPENSE<\/p>\n

Spencer Kope<\/span><\/p>\n

Whispers of the Dead: A Special Tracking Unit Novel<\/span><\/p>\n

Minotaur Books<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-2500-7288-7, (also available as an e-book, an audio book, and on Audible), 336 pgs., $26.99<\/p>\n

April 17, 2018<\/p>\n

A pair of human feet are found in a Styrofoam cooler<\/span> in the middle of a judge\u2019s living room in El Paso, Texas. Another pair are found in a defense attorney\u2019s living room in Tucson. FBI Operations Specialist Magnus Craig and his partner, FBI Special Agent James Donovan, along with intelligence research specialist Diane Parker, form the FBI\u2019s Special Tracking Unit. They have a serial killer on their hands, apparently meting out vigilante justice.<\/p>\n

Whispers of the Dead: A Special Tracking Unit Novel<\/span> is the second in a mystery-suspense series by Spencer Kope<\/span>, a crime analyst for the Whatcom County Sheriff\u2019s Office in Washington State. Collecting the Dead<\/span> (Minotaur, 2016) is the first installment in Kope\u2019s series, and while not necessary to understand follow the action in Whispers of the Dead,<\/span> it provides some references to prior events, including in the epilogue, which also tees up the third book.<\/p>\n

The main protagonist is Craig, a conflicted crimefighter haunted by previous cases, in whose first-person voice the story is told. The twist in this series is Craig\u2019s ability see what he calls \u201cshine\u201d (Stephen King, anyone?), which is like a person\u2019s aura; everyone has a unique shine, like DNA and fingerprints. This is how Craig associates disparate victims with a single killer. Only a handful of people are privy to this ability, and shine not being admissible in court, Craig and Donovan get creative with the chain of evidence.<\/p>\n

Whispers of the Dead<\/span> is full of personality and often amusing. Craig and Donovan are an entertaining duo; Craig is the wisecracking little brother \u2014 think Beaver Cleaver \u2014 whose \u201cmouth frequently outruns [his] common sense,\u201d to Donovan\u2019s straight man and older brother Wally. Or like Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte in 48 Hrs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many passages in Whispers of the Dead<\/span> tend toward the purple, as in \u201cstars so thick it\u2019s as if some astral giant poured out honey upon the blanket of night.\u201d Other passages are genuinely creepy. Still others combine the two: \u201cOverwhelmed and surrounded, a single incandescent bulb pushes back defiantly against the stygian black.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kope is capable of precise, evocative phrasing; a suburban neighborhood is the sort \u201cwhere kids play ball in the street until annoying hours of the night,\u201d one of the cookie-cutter McMansions \u201ca charming clone dressed in forest-green.\u201d But too often the metaphors are just weird. \u201cWords burst from his mouth like so much bad soup.\u201d And \u201cHe tries to swallow the laugh, which goes about as well as giving a gremlin a bath.\u201d I\u2019ve formed a hypothesis about these descriptions. Since they\u2019re often juvenile, could they be a deliberate choice to reflect Craig\u2019s personality, rather than oddities of Kope\u2019s writing?<\/p>\n

Whispers of the Dead<\/span> is a blend of psychology, police procedural, and the paranormal, with notes of \u201cDexter\u201d; while it has its good points in the personalities of, and dynamic between, the protagonists, it\u2019s inconsistent, unremarkable, and derivative. The pace is quick and even, and Kope\u2019s professional experience as a crime analyst provides interesting science and forensics. And while the clue that provides the big break is inspired, none of these are enough to recommend the whole.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MYSTERY\/SUSPENSE Spencer Kope Whispers of the Dead: A Special Tracking Unit Novel Minotaur Books Hardcover, 978-1-2500-7288-7, (also available as an e-book, an audio book, and on Audible), 336 pgs., $26.99 April 17, 2018 A pair of human feet are found in a Styrofoam cooler in the middle of a judge\u2019s living room in El Paso, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}