Richard Kadrey

In this fast paced sequel to The Everything Box—the second entry in New York Times bestselling author Richard Kadrey’s comedic supernatural series—chaos ensues when Coop and the team at DOPS steal a not-quite-dead and very lovesick ancient Egyptian mummy wielding some terrifying magic. Coop, a master thief sort of gone legit, saved the world from an ancient doomsday device—heroism that earned him a gig working for the Department of Peculiar Science, a fearsome top secret government agency that polices the odd and strange. Now Woolrich, Coop’s boss at the DOPS, has Coop breaking into a traveling antiquities show to steal a sarcophagus containing the mummy of a powerful Egyptian wizard named Harkhuf. With the help of his pals Morty, Giselle, and a professor that’s half-cat, half-robotic octopus, Coop pulls off the heist without a hitch. It’s not Coop’s fault that when DOPS opened the sarcophagus they didn’t find the mummy they were expecting. Well, it was the right mummy, but it wasn’t exactly dead—and now it’s escaped, using a type of magic the organization hasn’t encountered before. Being a boss, Woolrich blames his underling for the screw up and wants Coop to find the missing Harkhuf and make it right, pronto. Digging into Harkhuf’s history, Coop thinks the mummy is hunting for an ancient magical manuscript that will help him bring his old lover back to life. Which wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t a warrior sorceress hell-bent on conquering the world with her undead armies. Coop would very much like to run from the oncoming chaos. It’s one thing to steal a mummy, but another to have to deal with head-hunting bureaucrats, down-on-their luck fortune tellers, undead mailroom clerks, and a rather unimpressed elephant. Unfortunately, there’s nowhere to run. If he wants the madness to stop, he’s going to have to suck it up and play hero one more time. But if Coop manages to save the world AGAIN, he’s definitely going to want a lot of answers. And a raise.

The Wrong Dead Guy

Colleen

3 Stars

The Wrong Dead Guy was an impulse grab at the library. I did not realize it was a sequel. Having read it, I would not say that it was necessary to read The Everything Box first. Most of it was recapped. The only thing I was confused on initially was what the Marilyns were.
 
This is a humorous Urban Fantasy. The main character, Cooper, is a former thief working for a government agency that specializes in supernatural/paranormal events, items, and creatures. The main plot is about an ancient cursed mummy who is accidentally brought back to live who then proceeds on a murderous rampage to bring his former love back to life. If that plot sounds eerily familiar, then you’ve probably watched The Mummy. Although the similarities end there.

The story was humorous but extremely silly, even absurdist at times. Although I did chuckle often, after a while the humor got a bit stale. I could practically hear the recorded laugh track with each of the zippy one-liners. And the farther I got into the story, the more I realized that all of the characters delivered the same type of quips. That made them sound the same rather than having distinct character voices. It was rather like they were all auditioning for open mike night and each asked the same friend to write their jokes. If you pulled a line of dialogue randomly, I highly doubt I would be able to tell you which character said it. Actually, most of the characters’ names are already sliding from my memory.
 
The heist elements were disappointing. There is no zing in your caper if you have magical gadgets that override all electronics and a crew member who can mind control anyone in the vicinity. Where is the fun in that?

This is not a book you would read for stunning character development or complex characters. The plot was messy at times. There were too many separate plot lines that did eventually converge but not in a very satisfying way. So it felt like some of the subplots (and the characters in them) were filler and primarily unnecessary.
 
The worldbuilding was nothing astounding either. It is possible that there was more worldbuilding in the first book. But there were several things that I was still uncertain about by the end of the book. And the story teased a lot of things that sounded more interesting than what was actually going on in the story. Most of those were mentioned in passing and never brought up again. I definitely would have liked to delve deeper into the world.
 
Overall, The Wrong Dead Guy was a humorous yet generic read, but I probably will not continue the series.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 4 Stars
Writing Style: 3 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 3 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 2 Stars
Level of Captivation: 4 Stars
Originality: 2 Stars

Great series! It's that unique sort of wacky comedy where every perspective character in the book will inevitably run into all the others and more or less accidentally screw each other over. 

Sarah Escorsa

Actual rating: 3.465468 stars.

Okay, so this one was not as hilariously hilarious as the first book in the series. Okay, so it actually was (a little), but Kadrey tries so bloody shrimping hard to be funny sometimes that it ends up getting old, falling flat and not being so funny at all. Also, there were too many sub-plots that added very little to the story and slowed the pace down (view spoiler)[🥱🥱 (hide spoiler)]. 

But. Kadrey does get bonus points for rivaling Tom Holt in the Wacky as Fish Department (WaFD™). “Prove it!” you say? Why, with pleasure, my Tiny Decapods, with pleasure. Let's see, what do we have here? Well, manic-depressive iPods, for a start. And bloodsucking ostriches. And ambitious dead people. And wastebaskets that become hellmouths. And well-staffed rodent retirement community. And desk squids. DESK. SQUIDS.



My baby!!

What else, you ask? Well Egyptologists-turned-robotic-tentacled-octo-cats-with-television heads (don't ask). And glow-in-the-dark guinea pigs. And homicidal three-thousand-year-old dead guys in their underwear (yum), aka “bones and beef jerky wrapped in tissue paper” (yum again). And despotic vegetables. And velociraptors with guns. And foil scimitars. And “real-life holy-shit Boris Karloff mummy curses.” And mind-reading acts with pigs (I told you not to ask). And Shamu the hamster. And Agent Night vs. Agent Knight. And Macho Taco Guy Lombardo. And the Kraken Zap energy drink. And elephants that double as spoiler spoiler spoilers.



Yeah, I know, some people would argue that none of this makes any sense. Some people may actually very well be right. But you know what? If this story made any kind of sense, it wouldn't be half as funny as it is (which wouldn't be very funny indeed, since the story is sometimes not-so-funny at all, as I may or may not have already mentioned up there ↑↑). Also, if this story made any kind of sense, it wouldn't be Another Coop Heist. So ha! to you and stuff (view spoiler)[
  

  

  
 (hide spoiler)].

· Book 1: The Everything Box ★★★★★

P.S. The story also gets bonus points for being written by my boyfriend Sandman Slim's daddy, just so you know. You're welcome and stuff.

Anastaciya

Aaahh, book hangover... I like such stories. wish there were more books about Coop. guess I'll check other books by the author.

Abi Baker

i've just finished this and yet i couldn't tell you a single thing about it

The Wrong Dead Guy

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