Virtual Mount TBR Challenge 2024 discussion

So...I ran up through Stormness Head in the White Plume category, so, rather than adding a handful I figured I'd just bound to the top level. Let's see if I can go all the way from 61 to 100 by the time we run out of road.

#61 - Let Her Be by Lisa Unger

Well written, but ultimately predictable story about an obsessive writer recovering from a suicide attempt after his girlfriend left him due to his having blacked out and attacked her. When he begins to suspect something is off with the woman's new relationship and lifestyle, he investigates, drawing in a mutual friend. It all spirals from there, ending in a deliberately unresolved place and with a major mystery intact.

Kindle Unlimited

#62 - The Gift by Alison Gaylin

Straight out of the Twilight Zone, this one. A rich actress' daughter vanishes suddenly, and panic ensues. It's when she and her husband get a psychic involved that dark things come to light...as they do in these kinds of mysteries. Dark ending.

Kindle Unlimited

#63 - Slow Burner by Laura Lippman

A tale told in text messages and downright benign narrative as a wife tracks the coercive behaviour of her investor husband. Despite the calm, almost flippant, narrative, the story does execute a grand, if soap-operatic, turn, and the conclusion is excellent, if occasionally painful (at least for the family dog. who lives, but, damn, poor thing has sore legs, I'm sure.)

Kindle Unlimited

#64 - Hannah-Beast by Jennifer MacMahon

Split between 1986 and 2016, a dark, disturbing story of the callousness of children and how it can destroy lives over a long period. The twist ending here is unfortunately of the inevitable kind, and I'd rather have seen a bit of a swerve and a different resolution.

Kindle Unlimited

#65 - Treasure by Oyinkan Braithwaite

A lot to think about here, in a story about stalking and murder, the place of women in a stratified Nigerian society, and the negative aspects of social media used to execute ambition. Treasure isn't the brightest spark, but those that decide to prey on her (and accidentally discover the truth) are entitled dullards.

Kindle Unlimited

#66 - Buried by Jeffrey Deaver

A downright old-fashioned story that could have come out of the 1970s but for the various modern trapping (amusingly, the old school reporter here would have been at his prime in the late 70s, early 80s, though Deaver writes him as a 1940s style newshound.)

There's a new serial offender on the loose, not quite a serial killer -- he's been tagged "The Gravedigger" because he likes to bury people, putting out riddles to alert authorities to locations. Not to worry, journalism will win the day (it's at this point that the tale dives into the fantastical, considering there's been no real investigative journalists at work in a couple of decades...well, Greg Palast, perhaps, but he has a very specific beat, and is freelance.)

In the vein of 1970s gritty thrillers, the story lurches into politics as a popular Presidential candidate looms into view and we start to find out what the real story is.

It's hokum, really, but it has an old school charm to it that I can't fault, and the characters are gently interesting.

Kindle Unlimited

#68-69 - Sankarea 7: Undying Love, Sankarea 8: Undying Love by Mitsuru Hattori

To quote one commenter "My light romantic comedy manga about a cute guy and his dead girlfriend just turned into Day Of The Dead.

Pretty much, yep. Chihiro has joined Rea, Bub, and Darin on their trip to the ZoMa facility, where they meet Darin's father, Salva Arciento, who runs the place. He's a straight up mad scientist, essentially, so things get really awful in a hurry -- Rea is operated on, and Chihiro is dumped into a cage in the Haitian jungle, where he's attacked by end-stage "eater" zombies. And then Darin figures out that her father is sociopathic and relates only to zombies (essentially what Chihiro might well become, though Chihiro's compassion is helping him stay sane...for now.)

Then Grandpa turns up, arriving in time to save Chihiro...and reveal some things about himself and his connection to Zoma, the zombie island, and Darin's father, Salva. Above all else, though...Chihiro and Rea must escape.

ComiXology

#70 - Kill Night by Victor Methos

Straight up legal plotboiler. Two lawyers from a less than reputable Las Vegas law firm are sent to Bailey, Utah, a hole in the wall town, to defend a relative of the firm's owner against a terrible murder charge. It doesn't go well -- a biased small-town judge, an equally biased prosecutor, and a sheriff who's sure he got the right guy -- a young man passing through town who picked up a hitchhiker who admitted to murder and left the evidence in his car.

It's a speedy read with no unfamiliar story bumps.

Kindle Unlimited, with an Audible companion.

#71 - The Sleep Tight Motel by Lisa Unger

A young woman on the run with stolen money, pursued by a psychotic vengeful man. A motel in the middle of nowhere, all its rooms empty. A mysterious fog. Terrifying sounds from what should be an empty room. The motel owner is a quiet fellow, helpful, conciliatory towards this panicky stranger who's fallen prey to her own worst instincts.

There's a twist in the tale, of course, but I'm sure readers will have figured it out by page ten at the latest.

Kindle Unlimited/Audible Plus

#72 - Turning Point by Jeffrey Deaver

A rather creepy outing from Deaver, who serves up a story of a serial killer, the Russian Doll Killer. For a good portion of the story we follow the sociopathic Michael who loves to dissect the personalities of people he encounters -- he's pretty vicious with it, as we see. He also appears to be RDK, but wait...there's a twist! And another twist! And a coda that lengthily explains the whole WTF of it.

Well written, but, oi, it ain't great.

Kindle Unlimited/Audible Plus

#73 - Unknown Caller by Lisa Unger

A counselor in a crisis call center is going through a normal enouh day when an unidentified caller gets on her line...and her own past is opened up, revealing the sad truth of why she does what she does.

Pretty good go at the subject of mental health issues amongst vulnerable teens.

Kindle Unlimited

#74 - Trouble by Janelle Brown

A story of a bad seed...or is she a smart kid who's learned to be horribly manipulative from her apparently sociopathic grandmother, the woman who's perhaps ruined her own daughter. Either way, the protagonist here is Holly, a retired actress and desperate social crusader/white knight who sees her daughter's friend, Sylvie, as a project to save. Which is where it all goes wrong....

It's a paean to the issues with the desire to be heroic and Save The Children. It's not great, alas, and it's obvious where things are going from the start.

Kindle Unlimited/Audible Plus

#75 - These Cold Strangers by J. T. Ellison

When Addison, a writer for a DC online magazine, recognizes an apparent good samaritan in a video of a street rescue, she heads for her hometown...and the horror of her past, when her family was murdered and she was briefly a suspect in the slaughter. She finds her former classmate unwilling to go on record, however, and almost walks away from the story. But persistence pays, right? And then the trouble starts....

It's a fairly standard story, with the twist screaming out early on and an ending that just keeps going and going until the "how this came about" coda wraps it up.

Kindle Unlimited

#75-78 - All My Darkest Impulses Circling the Drain Fog Descending Love the Way You Lie by Lisa Unger

A serial release. A disgraced professor, Matthew Merle, moves back to the old family home he's inherited, along with his wife and his very angry daughter. That seems to set a chain of events into motion, dredging up the past and apparently wrecking the lives of his old friends. Also in the mix is a local realtor, Audrey March, who's still trying to find out what happened to her twin sister Amelia, who vanished aged sixteen.

From there it goes into supernatural horror...or does it? Ultimately I'm not sure what was supposed to be real and what was supernatural...or a fake-out. I did see the main revelation coming from miles off, unfortunately, which took some punch out of the story -- the author claims to be mainly influenced by Shirley Jackson. but Robert Bloch and Hitchcock are in there too, right down to the coda that tells us what happened afterwards, complete with psychiatrist notes.

Kindle Unlimited/Audible Plus

#79 - Void by Veronica Roth

A charming little mystery set aboard the Redundancy, a slower than light starship making relativistic journeys between Earth and human colonies in the Centauri system. Roth does get a little cute with her character naming, but the draw here isn't so much the murder mystery or the setting (though it's cleverly utilized) as the characters, especially Ace, the protagonist.

Prime Reading (The Far Reaches Collection)

#80 - Falling Bodies by Rebecca Roanhorse

A very flawed attempt to use the basic idea of colonizers in predation of indigenous peoples in a science fiction context, with a slight YA angle to it. The issue is that the story is awkward, with a lift of the Patty Hearst story and a glaringly obvious ending.

Prime Reading

#81 - New X-Men Omnibus by Grant Morrison and various

As I've noted elsewhere, reading this giant brick of a book was pretty much revisiting the disappointment I felt back when I read the series in single issues.

Hits the ground running, with a wild burst of energy, revamping the X-Men for the 21s Century...then calamitously declines just past halfway as the "Planet X" arc pretty much negates everything that came before. Finally wraps up with the no-stakes "Here Comes Tomorrow", set 150 years in the future, a story that retcons itself at the finish (about the only lasting effect from it is the idea of Beast as Mad Scientist who'll destroy the world if he isn't stopped, and that only showed up a decade later, continuing into the Krakoa arc.) Morrison's Fantomex did stick around the X-books, but he never really rose above being a Diabolik expie.

Morrison's approach did some good things for the X-Men, cleaning up the stultified, chaotic mess that had resulted over the years, but a mix of editorial interference and Morrison deciding to jump to DC as their relationship with Marvel soured resulted in his run being followed by Chuck Austen, who just fouled everything up again.

The omnibus runs the gamut of art styles, meanwhile -- Frank Quitely's art is consistently fascinating, but then we have the absolutely wretched art of Igor Kordey, who renders everybody as grotesques.

ComiXology Unlimited

#82 - The Long Game by Ann Leckie

Well, certainly an attempt at a story about the needs of life, from the viewpoint of a short-lived alien that serves humans as a gardener or something (I was never quite sure what Narr's job was.) Narr is wondering why humans don't find a way to extend the life and usefulness of their species, so sets off in search of answers. Myself, I so quickly drifted away from the story (falling asleep, in fact) that I had to restart.

Prime Reading

#83 - Scarlet Witch, Vol. 1: The Last Door by Steve Orlando, Sara Pichelli, etc

Wanda, post yet another redemption, now running an occult tea shop in a small town and helping those who come through the mysterious "last door" that opens into her store. Nothing really deep, but a fun read.

ComiXology

#84 - Spook Street by Mick Herron

I swear, these are the Pringles of spy books. This time Jackson Lamb’s misfit bunch at Slough House are dragged into a confusing mystery when someone attempts to murder David Cartwright, the grandfather of wanna-be action hero River Cartwright (he’s pretty bad at it, though he keeps escaping death) and former secret service legend. Meanwhile, MI5’s main operation is tied up with a new First Desk and the aftermath of a horrific bombing incident. Then both of these lines start to draw together into one horrific realization that goes far into the past….

This is actually a grimmer Slough House novel than usual, though no less complicated or propulsive. Nobody comes out of this undamaged, not even the resilient (or resistant) Jackson Lamb, who’s still recovering from the madness of the previous book.

Hoopla

#85 - London Rules by Mick Herron

The MI5 cast-offs of Slough House are months past the catastrophic few days where River Cartwright's Dad tried to kill his Granddad, along with all of the Slow Horses, and things have settled back into the usual malaise and seem likely to stay that way, despite the awful events in a distant English village, not to mention the exploding penguins.

Then someone makes an attempt to kill Roddy Ho, the self-deluding computer ace who was assigned to the gross Jackson Lamb and his team at Slough House years ago. Roddy's there because he's a complete idiot on an emotional level. Out of boredom more than anything, the Slow Horses start to investigate and, as always, the truth comes out and everything goes sideways. One of the more blackly funny entries, though there's some moments where it's dark and serious.

Hoopla

#86 - Ultimate Invasion by Jonathan Hickman & Bryan Hitch

Having presided over the end of the Ultimate Universe a few years ago, Hickman now presides over a *new* Ultimate Universe....this one built to the preferences of the Maker, the evil supergenius version of Reed Richards. So, pretty much Everything Gets Remixed and by the time the fires have died down and the Maker has seemingly been obliterated, stories are restarting. Kudos to Hickman for salvaging the awful Teen Tony concept.

Hoopla

#87 - The Flash, Vol. 2: The Road to Flashpoint by Geoff Johns, et all

The lead-up to Flashpoint where the DC Universe changed forever (until they changed it back...sideways...something.) We get the origin of Professor Zoom/Reverse Flash, and an alternate Barry Allen who's a super motorcycle cop code-named Hot Pursuit. Alt Barry wears police lights on his shoulders and is an even bigger jackass than mainline Barry is.

Now rendered thoroughly pointless, of course.

Comixology Unlimited