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Book Summary and Reviews of Shadows of the Dead by Spencer Kope

Shadows of the Dead by Spencer Kope

Shadows of the Dead

Special Tracking Unit #3

by Spencer Kope

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Published:
  • Aug 2020, 384 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

The best tracker in the world, a man with a secret and a special set of skills, must find two nearly untraceable killers before time runs out for their victims, in Spencer Kope's Shadows of the Dead.

A woman―abducted and found in the trunk of a car after a high-speed chase―regains consciousness in the ICU to reveal two crucial pieces of information: the man who kidnapped her is not the same as the man who left her in the woods, and she's not the first victim―in fact, she is number eight.

Magnus "Steps" Craig is part of the elite three-man Special Tracking Unit of the FBI. Known for his ability to find and follow trails over any surface, Steps is called in on cases that require his unparalleled skills. But there's a secret to his talent. Steps has a kind of synesthesia where he can see the 'essence' of a person―what he calls 'shine'―on everything they've touched.

Brought in to track the driver through a dense forest after the blood hounds have lost his trail, Steps and his partner Jimmy find the driver laughing maniacally, babbling about souls, and hiding a pristinely maintained box of eight posed rats. Now the Special Tracking Unit must chase two villains―through not just the real world, but the dark web as well―tracking an enemy they can't see, as time runs out for the unknown victims.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"[R]elentless...By layering Craig's skill with traditional FBI procedural techniques, Kope has created something truly special." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Creepy set pieces alternate with warm, sometimes funny interactions between the dogged agents. No computer skills required." - Kirkus Reviews

This information about Shadows of the Dead was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Spencer Kope

Spencer Kope is the Crime Analyst for the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office. Currently assigned to Detectives Division, he provides case support to detectives and deputies, and is particularly good at identifying possible suspects. In his spare time he developed a database-driven analytical process called Forensic Vehicle Analysis (FVA) used to identify the make, model and year range of vehicles from surveillance photos. It's a tool he's used repeatedly to solve crimes. One of his favorite pastimes is getting lost in a bookstore, and he lives in Washington State.

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