In this fast paced sequel to The Everything Boxâthe second entry in New York Times bestselling author Richard Kadreyâs comedic supernatural seriesâchaos 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 deviceâheroism 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, Coopâs 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 thatâs half-cat, half-robotic octopus, Coop pulls off the heist without a hitch.
Itâs not Coopâs fault that when DOPS opened the sarcophagus they didnât find the mummy they were expecting. Well, it was the right mummy, but it wasnât exactly deadâand now itâs escaped, using a type of magic the organization hasnât 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 Harkhufâs history, Coop thinks the mummy is hunting for an ancient magical manuscript that will help him bring his old lover back to life.
Which wouldnât be so bad if she wasnât a warrior sorceress hell-bent on conquering the world with her undead armies.
Coop would very much like to run from the oncoming chaos. Itâs 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, thereâs nowhere to run. If he wants the madness to stop, heâs going to have to suck it up and play hero one more time. But if Coop manages to save the world AGAIN, heâs definitely going to want a lot of answers. And a raise.