I’m thrilled to finally read the next installment in the Stanley Cooper chronicles. I loved the action and characters in Vermin and Pages, and Ectostorm keeps up the pace with my favorite fictional people. Stan, Maggie, and Andi are all back, along with some new friends and new enemies, and a very irritating demonic hitchhiker.
Stanley knew he wasn’t the only person to return from the dead, but he had no idea how many others lived in Pittsburgh. When a mysterious man comes looking for Stan, claiming to represent a group of “like-minded individuals,” Stan quickly steps onto a roller coaster ride with others like himself. When one of Stan’s new friends turns up murdered, with his name written on the wall above her headless corpse and an evergreen tree written in supernatural ink, he knows he has a problem.
One by one, Stan’s new friends turn up dead, each with a message for Stan himself from someone in Evergreen. As Stan and Maggie revisit their old friends in a race against time to find the traitor, we begin to piece together a picture of evil and power that threatens to take from him what he loves most and destroy the city of Pittsburgh.
Stanley must confront the ultimate traitor of Evergreen to stop the murders of others like him and protect his family. As always, Pittsburgh is a character herself, and da ‘Burgh comes to life through Stan’s travels. The pace is fast, the stakes are high, and Johnson tells the story of these supernatural happenings with a voice that makes me think the sky above my city will be green when I look next.
I highly recommended Ectostorm as a fun supernatural adventure.
Nikki Hopeman 