Buried

In Cooper’s so-so sequel to 2018’s Caged, FBI agent Sayer Altair, a neurologist who’s studying serial killers’ brains in an effort to ascertain what makes some psychopaths killers, is called in after a fellow agent stumbles on a cavern containing multiple human skeletons in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park. Her life and that of a colleague are almost instantly imperiled at the bottom of the cavern when someone pours gasoline from above into the cavern and sets it on fire. As her inquiry progresses, the future of her position is under threat from a Congressional hearing into how the murderer from the previous book could work undetected at the Bureau’s Quantico lab for years. Meanwhile, an anonymous participant in her research study, who claims to be a Washington, D.C., power broker, says he knows the truth about the death of her fiancé, Jake. The various story lines all follow conventional paths. That Cooper’s prose skews melodramatic (“As Sayer made her way back to her motorcycle, a coal of violence burned in her chest”) doesn’t help. This one’s strictly cookie-cutter. Agent: Amy Tannenbaum, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (July)