BOOK REVIEW: Buried by Ellison Cooper @ECooperAuthor @MinotaurBooks #buried #ellisoncooper

Seriously chilling!

Are you prepared to dive deep into the mind of a serial killer? This book will keep you up at night reading, and you should maybe think about keeping the lights on for a few of the chapters if you are prone to getting too invested in a story. Buried is sure to do that!

Neuroscientist and FBI agent Sayer Altair is brought in on a cold case, but it turns out not to be so cold after all when two new bodies turn up. Even more frightening than the link between the skeletal remains and the new corpses is the link to a recent kidnapping of a mother and her daughter.

About the Book

Senior Special Agent Sayer Altair studies the minds of psychopaths. But even she didn’t expect to uncover a killer within the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Rooting him out and exposing internal corruption got her a bullet wound and six months of desk duty. Now, she’s finally back in the field, called in when an off-duty FBI agent and his cadaver dog fall into a sinkhole filled with human bones.

Found deep in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, the skeletal remains date back almost two decades, the same time a beloved local teen disappeared. The cold case quickly heats up when Sayer’s team finds two fresh corpses among the bones. When a gruesome clue ties these new bodies to a woman recently kidnapped along with her young daughter, Sayer has to uncover the connection between the old bones and the new bodies before the mother and child become the next victims.

But the killer is one step ahead, attacking her team and sabotaging their efforts. With Sayer’s investigation compromised and unsure of who to trust, she receives unwanted help from Subject 037, one of the anonymous psychopaths she is currently studying. She has the chilling realization that he’s someone powerful in Washington D.C.—and he is not about to let a mundane serial killer jeopardize his own ominous agenda for Sayer…

Reflection

I didn’t read the first book in this series Caged, though it has been on my list after some serious buzz. But I didn’t feel behind at all when I read Buried! Special Agent Sayer is on desk duty following the last case she solved ended in a bullet wound. But her mind is as sharp as ever and she needed every bit of her wits to solve this case!

When off-duty agent Max is out walking his dog, the scent of a cadaver leads the dog (and Max) to discover a set of human bones. This was quite a start to the story! I am somewhat obsessed with police dogs. They are incredible, able to differentiate scents in very specific ways. I digress though…

I love a strong female lead and Sayer certainly fits that bill. She is not to type of woman who would read a book such as this and leave the lights on, I’ll say that. She is tough as nails and a total boss, working as a biracial woman in a male-dominated field. I’d love to be as tough as Sayer is! I really loved learning more about her life too. I thought Cooper provided a lot of backstory and character development, which is often lacking in second novels in a series. I learned about her parents and the death of her fiancé, and I felt like I really knew who she was as a person outside of her career.

The pace of this one felt lightening fast to me, in part because the story was so good and also because stylistically Cooper used shorter chapters to great effect. There were also a bounty of suspects and clues, and they were delivered throughout the story in a way that kept my mind churning. This is a read-in-a-day sort of book if you have the time!

And then I want to strongly avoid anything that could be construed as a spoiler, but I feel I should touch on the meat of this book—the serial killer. The psychologist in me was fascinated by how the clues all came together, and I was NOT disappointed at all by the outcome of this! Don’t go into this thinking you have the book figured out, because I promise you don’t!

Twists, chills, great characters, and a fantastic case. I can’t recommend this enough!

Thank you to Minotaur Books for my copy. Opinions are my own.