Richard Kadrey
Harper Voyager
February 28th, 2016
Coop just wants to peacefully steal stuff for the DOPS, not mess with magic and the animated dead.
Except he doesn’t really have a choice. When the DOPS sends him into a museum to steal the ancient mummy of Harkhuf, an Egyptian sorcerer, he’s in for a whole world of trouble.
The Wrong Dead Guy is the sequel to The Everything Box, where we were introduced to Coop, a thief who ended up working for a supernatural governmental agency.
With Coop’s weird cast of friends and shady associates (a girlfriend with a quirky sense of humor that can render them invisible to people, an archeologist turned cat-tv-robot octopus, fellow thieves and scam artists) he navigates the weird bureaucracy of the DOPS while trying to fix a very strange situation.
The group steals the mummy, but the mummy turns out to be a little more alive than they bargained for. He’s mobile, and seeking a grimoire that can help him bring his mummified lover back to life. Along with psychics looking to take advantage of the situation, and an old rival gumming up the works from the mail room, simply retrieving one dead guy gets pretty complicated very quickly.
I love Kadrey’s sense of humor, and that’s why this book worked so well for me. It’s a fun read, and a series I hope continues for at least a few more installments.
JL Jamieson is a strange book nerd who writes technical documents by day, and book news, reviews, and other assorted opinions for you by night. She is working on her own fiction, and spends time making jewelry to sell at local conventions, as well as stalking the social media accounts of all your favorite writers.