Review: The Cosmic Killings by Thomas J. Thorson

Author Thomas J. Thorson delivers a gripping Malcolm Winters mystery with his latest installment, The Cosmic Killings.

A young Amish girl is found dead at a zoo during her Rumspringa adventure, and while the Chicago PD are shrugging it off as random violence, there is something decidedly strange about this monkey house murder. Mal and Vinn, mild-mannered professors once again moonlighting as reluctant sleuths, find themselves diving into the mysterious and tight-lipped realm of the Amish, hunting for clues and hints as to why someone would want to remove a bone from the young woman’s forehead. When a second body hits the ground, it’s obvious that these killings aren’t random, and that some higher power might be pulling the strings.

The otherworldly, titular elements of the story are found in space station scribbles and esoteric religious beliefs in alien overlords, which sends this story spiraling into cult philosophy, ritual killings, and themes of immortality, salvation, and domination. What begins as a straightforward buddy-sleuth mystery turns into a thought-provoking thriller that takes on gender roles, power dynamics, and millennia of hotly debated beliefs. Though the crime seems extreme, the narrative is oddly believable, as is the pace of the investigation, which features more dead ends than enlightening clues, and a good amount of head-scratching and meticulous research.

The protagonist pair in this series, who seem like a magnet for grisly crimes, offers a new twist on the classic investigative team, and the author continues to make the partnership between Mal and Vinn engaging, both on and off their cases. They make for excellent leads, balancing out one another’s strengths, while juggling banter in a way that is both authentic and entertaining. Whether they’re following up on mysterious pizza receipts or using high-tech social media skimmers to narrow their hunt, the pair’s crime-solving strategies are both classic and modern. They frequently flirt with the edge of the law themselves, such as tampering with evidence, stealing clues from a victim’s home, or impersonating officers, which ends up making them oddly charming vigilante investigators.

Thorson’s depiction of Chicago, its denizens, and the perennial gritty beauty of the Windy City are captured exceptionally well in these pages. The minutiae of the city, from Lou Malnati’s locations to the Tamale Guy and the UIC theatre department, all give a sense of comfort and familiarity with the setting that makes the story a true pleasure to read. That said, there are a few areas of the plot where readers need to suspend their disbelief a bit more, including the casual collaboration that Mal and Vinn have with law enforcement in Chicago, but this does feel critical to the progress of the plot. There are few technical errors in the writing itself, but the dialogue is sometimes too functional, acting as a vehicle for exposition, but not resembling how people actually talk or share information.

These weaker moments are few and far between, however, as the vast majority of this wild read is cleverly penned to perfection, for an eerie, original, and endlessly entertaining thriller.