Steven’s Comments (group member since Dec 29, 2023)

Steven’s comments from the Virtual Mount TBR Challenge 2024 group.

#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

#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

#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

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.

I'm moving on from here past the next level....

#60 - GG1 Images 1975-1980 by Harv Kahn

A collection of photos of the gigantic GG-1 electric locomotives initially used by the Pennsylvania Railroad, and later used by Penn Central, Conrail, NJDOT, and Amtrak. They were gloriously ugly beasts, but made for quite striking photographs.

Kindle Unlimited

#59 - Snowflakes by Ruth Ware

There's more than a few people going off on this as a political attack on the right in the US, but it's a lot vaguer than that -- this could as easily be set in the UK, where there's preppers and sovereign citizen types and right wingers with violent tendencies who've fallen right off the sanity wagon. That Ware specifically mentions Father having an old shotgun, the ammo for which he keeps in a can in the kitchen, would certainly lend itself to it being the UK -- and obtaining a cache of guns isn't *that* hard there, despite the laws.

Anyway, it's a story about a man who flees to a secluded island with his kids, claiming there's been a war, and what happens next, told from the point of view of an older girl. It's pretty predictable, if well written.

Part of the Hush collection from Kindle Unlimited.

#58 - Trolleys in the 1970's: In the 1970's by Harv Kahn, Ray Tutaj, Jr.

Ray Tutaj, Jr. has assembled a number of books of Harv Kahn's traction and railroad photography, much of it from the 1970s, some from the 1980s. Kahn himself passed away years before the books were produced, dying from the effects of Agent Orange.

The result, as here, is a collection of unique photographs. They're not the most brilliant works, and the captioning is far from the best, but it's good to have them out in the world. This volume covers three transit agencies, including Boston, and avoids anything that might be a glamour shot -- indeed, more than a few cars are shown in the yard, out of service and in sad shape. There's also a series of shots of Boston's LRV cars, built by Boeing -- proof positive that Boeing's design and manufacturing woes are nothing new (the LRV were deeply hated in Boston.)

Kindle Unlimited

#55 - Sankarea 4: Undying Love by Mitsuru Hattori
#56 - Sankarea 5: Undying Love by Mitsuru Hattori
#57 - Sankarea 6: Undying Love by Mitsuru Hattori

Furuya's life with accidental zombie Rea gets more and more complicated, with family secrets emerging and a teenage visitor revealing more and more about zombie research, as well as Furuya's doddering grandfather -- who was a top researcher who fell victim to his own work. Worse yet, Rea's zombie state seems to be progressing -- both the decay, and the ghoulish hunger for human flesh. Topping that off, Furuya's zombiefied cat Bub has become monstrous, topping that his cousin Ranko reveals her feelings for him and fear that his trying to help Rea will get him killed. Then there's Rea's awful family....

It's nice to see the story developing more and more depth, with Furuya beginning to realize the consequences of what he' been doing, and Rea struggling with what she's become. The secondary science fiction storyline is more in the background, though might be coming to the fore soon.

Tragedy seems inevitable, though.

The series midpoint descended into rather a lot of awkward fanservice, though the mangaka here does have a rather nice art style. That seems to have settled down now, thankfully.

ComiXology

#54 - Shaken, Not Stirred by Alma Katsu

The story of Yuri Koslov comes to an end, with Yuri making his decision just in time for a Russian attack on the Montego Bay enclave where the CIA team has moved things. This one fell down with a bit of a thud, as Katsu not only has a lot of gunplay happening, but has the Jamaican police reacting swiftly and decisively -- and then she elides the diplomatic chaos that would have followed. Ah well.

Kindle Unlimited/Audible Plus

#53 - The Other Car by Paul Levinson

A college professor leaves his gym on a seemingly ordinary afternoon...and discovers an identical twin to his car parked in the next spot. He's intrigued and curious, but it seems an unlikely coincidence, no more.

Until he finds a duplicate copy of a book he's sure he has the last copy of...one with identical markings and dings. The twinning keeps coming...is he going crazy or is the world somehow splitting in two?

It's a fascinating take on the multiversal idea, though it skips explanation and ends with abruptness, though that works for this tale.

Kindle Unlimited

#51 - The Vanishing Man by Alma Katsu
#52 - On Enemy Ground by Alma Katsu

A contemporary spy trilogy following Yuri Koslov, defector from the FSB. He's actually under orders directly from Vladimir Putin, and is going to have to navigate CIA and State Department handlers. But does he really want to carry out the mission?

Kindle Unlimited

#50 - Surprise Ending by Jeffrey Deaver

As it says on the tin. A very unlikely storyline, honestly, but it does play fair with its story of Baltimore mobsters, an ambitious cop, and a thriller writer with a story to set up and direct.

Kindle Unlimited

#49 - Double Cross by Jeffrey Deaver

An accountant who owes mobsters, a daring robbery, a screw-up, an unfortunate witness, and a twist in the tale. Solid little noir tale.

Kindle Unlimited

#48 - Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch

While the story has continued on beyond this in the graphic novels, it almost feels as though Aaronovitch wanted this to be an ending, or at least the penultimate novel in the series. Credit, though, to Aaronovitch pretty much starting from a Monty Python sketch to build his story (though I'm sad he didn't get a Mel Brooks reference in there as well.) The book also ends with a lack of explanation for one key element after much effort expended on the history behind the case. didn't stop me from reading for much longer than might be good for me, though.

Libby

#47 - Pigeon Tony's Last Stand by Lisa Scottoline

Scottoline revisits her Rosario series characters, including the Tonys, to tell a story of neighbourhood redemption. Enjoyable, if a tiny bit naïve, and the Tonys are a charmind bunch of alte kockers.

Kindle Unlimited/audible Plus

#46 - False Value by Ben Aaronvitch

No longer enduring a pro forma suspension, Detective Constable Peter Grant joins a high tech firm, Serious Cybernetics Corporation, as part of the security team. In reality, though, he's undercover, and things are about to get very strange indeed as the Australian tech billionaire who owns the company is harbouring secrets...and there are powerful groups who want those secrets.

Less engaging overall than most of the books, and very plot heavy - and even more reference-heavy than most of the books.

Libby

#45 - Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovitch

The conclusion to the Faceless Man arc through the books, though not the end of Lesley May's story. Peter, Nightingale, and an increasingly large group of Metropolitan Police are assigned to Operation Jennifer, intended to track down and capture the Faceless Man (now exposed) and the wayward Lesley May, whose agenda becomes much clearer here. It's a thundering chaos of story, honestly, but satisfying to a big degree. What comes next? False Value comes next!

Libby

#44 - The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch

Peter Grant is back in London and it isn't long before he's up to his neck in trouble when he's called by Lady Tyburn, the goddess of the River Tyburn, to help bail her daughter out of a jam. Peter almost manages this...until Olivia confesses to dealing the drugs that might have killed a girl at an illegal party she was at. Peter doesn't believe the confession, and neither do the regular police officers, and the chase is on.

Then things get *really* complicated and extremely messy. Plus there's all that property damage....

Libby

#43 - Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

Back to the rivers Of London...well, singular, as in Beverley Brook accompanying PC Peter Grant on an investigation that takes him well afield of the Folly as he's assigned to talk to a retired Practitioner who lives in a region of Herefordshire close to where two eleven year old girls have vanished. When Peter joins the search the mysteries begin to pile up, and he stands to not only discover new things about his job, but whole new realms linked to the Forms And Wisdoms...not to mention having his toolkit expanded. Plus, Beverley has her own plans and intentions when it comes to Peter -- and the River Lugg.

It's a quite dense book, with a bit of an abrupt ending, but it's very pastoral in tone, and surprisingly free of death (aside from the occasional sheep) if not mayhem of one kind or another. It does a great job of opening out the world.

By this point, by the way, I'm wondering about the genius loci -- if they're in various bodies of water (generally as transformed humans), what are the ones attached to canals like?

Libby