Collecting the Dead - Spencer Kope

Collecting the Dead (2016) is the first in Spencer Kope’s now four-book series featuring Magnus “Steps” Craig, and it’s a doozy of a book. “Steps” is a human tracker, an FBI man who specializes in going into the deep woods to locate the missing victims of what all too often turns out to be a serial killer. You’ve probably seen the real-life version of a Steps Craig on television before because the reality is that there are some very serious serial killers out there right now, and there always will be. Along with the rest of the team, Jimmy Donovan and Diane Parker, Steps tries to find as many of the hidden as he can before it is too late to save them. 

Steps Craig, though, is not what he seems. The man has a secret and he wants to keep it that way: Steps is the best tracker in the business because he has a talent that no other tracker has, a talent he explains this way:

“I see the hidden; I see the shine, every touch, every footfall, every cheek on a pillow, every hand on a wall. Some might call it an aura, I just call it life energy; either way it leaves its soft glowing trace on everything we come in contact with, radiating even from the blood we leave behind. Sometimes it’s chartreuse with a wispy texture, or muddy mauve, or flaming coral, or a crimson baked-earth. Every shine is different and specific to a person, like fingerprints or eye scans or DNA.”

The problem is that Steps can’t turn this unique talent on and off at will. It is so disturbing and distracting an ability, in fact, that he has to wear a specially designed set of eyeglasses to eliminate all of the vivid colors that would otherwise make it impossible for him to get through a normal day. But right now, he needs to see all those colors because Steps and Jimmy have been called out to examine the remains of yet another young woman, and what he finds there is disturbing in the worst way. Not only does he find the expected shine; he recognizes it and also finds the killer’s “signature” drawing of a sad face. This means the team is facing yet another serial killer.

So the last thing Steps needs is the reappearance of his personal serial killer nemesis, a man he’s been trying to catch for the last ten years. “Leonardo,” as he calls him, is so evil that Steps can barely sleep from the frustration of not being able to catch up with the man, and when he does manage to fall asleep his Leonardo nightmares terrify him. But for the moment, Leonardo is going to have to be put on the back burner because the Sad Face Killer knows that he is being hunted — and he likes it.

Bottom Line: The premise of a man like Steps Craig may be a little farfetched, but it works brilliantly because Kope is so good at humanizing Steps, Jimmy, Diane (who may be my favorite character of them all), and all the side-characters on both sides of the good vs. bad equation. Too, Kope ends this introductory volume on the perfect note, with a revelation of what is to come in the second book — and he does it without having to resort to one of those frustrating cliffhangers that most readers hate. Instead, Kope tells us that Leonardo is back — and it’s game on in Whispers of the Dead, the 2018 addition to the Magnus “Steps” Craig series. 

Oh…and I love the fact that Steps Craig is a book collector, and the way that Kope uses that personality trait in this book. That’s a really nice touch.

Spencer Kope

(Thanks to Cathy of Kittling Books for bringing Spencer Kope and this series to my attention with her recent review of the latest Magnus “Steps” Craig novel.)