Plot or Premise

After the Maker reshapes Earth so there are no superheroes, Stark’s son sends a message through dimensions to activate Spiderman with a radioactive spider.

What I Liked

I’m not a giant comics reader, but I always loved the Spiderman universe. I’ve seen the movies, watched a lot of the cartoons, grew up watching them in fact. So when I saw a list of books that some curators were doing of books they like to gift, and Ultimate Spiderman was on the list, I had to check it out. A few clicks later and I had the book file, plus an app to read it, and I was quickly immersed. I love the premise of Peter Parker becoming a superhero later in life, after he has already married MJ and had two kids. I even like the alternate timeline where Aunt May died, not Uncle Ben, and Uncle Ben works with J. Jonah Jameson at the Bugle. Seeing a different Peter Parker grow into the role is great.

What I Didn’t Like

Two things bothered me in the storyline. First and foremost, there is not near enough coverage of Peter learning to be Spiderman. Secondly, Osborne as a “good” Green Goblin is a little farfetched, particularly when you see him in business initially with Kingpin.

The Bottom Line

Photographer, webslinger…Dad? Yep, it works!

Plot or Premise

A former mob enforcer and cleaner has a new identity and no worries, until an unknown body turns up on her lawn.

What I Liked

The initial premise was kind of interesting — a former mob assassin / cleaner who has (mostly) retired finds a dead body on her lawn. A young female detective looks into the murder, and also thinks there is something off about the retired woman too. After that, it is all downhill.

What I Didn’t Like

I hated just about everything in this book. I was going to quit, but the author is an Agatha winner and an Edgar nominee. It can’t be THAT bad, can it? It has to get better? Nope. I was going to quit at the 30% mark.

At that point, we had Lorraine (the retired mobster) running around trying to investigate the crime. Everybody she meets, literally everybody, the first words out of her mouth are insults. Not just men…the family of the dead guy, witnesses she wants info from, the cops. It’s supposedly “wit” according to the promo copy, because she’s old and saying things that turn people off and surprise, they won’t help her. Really? How strange. Despite the fact that she’s supposed to be street wise, really good with planning murders and body disposals, skating by in life unseen and under the radar.

Oh, and every man she meets, they’re obviously sexist pigs who deserve to die. Oh, and did I mention she has a dead husband that seems like she misses him in the first half of the book and the second half she’s joking that he’s dead. Okaaaay. Did I also mention that she’s trying to figure out the case, but she abruptly kills the ONLY PERSON WHO KNOWS ANYTHING before finding anything out?

I had some hopes for the female detective. Some, not much. But the dead guy was a PI who was following a shady guy who was a drug dealer just before the PI ends up dead. It’s possible the drug dealer is into shady dealings with two other guys from high school. But other than Lorraine, the drug dealer is the ONLY real suspect. Yet at the 50% mark, Detective Mike has been investigating the case for several days and pauses to think, “What if the drug dealer killed him?”. Like, seriously? What the heck? He is the ONLY suspect at the time. There is virtually NOBODY else with any known motive. Yet she’s super smart and just figured out maybe he was involved? OMG.

I didn’t think this train wreck could get worse until Detective Mike accidentally finds some bad guys by random luck, there’s a farcical series of scenes moving a body, and Lorraine cracks part of the mystery with amazing deductive skills that make NO SENSE AT ALL. She makes a random guess that has nothing to do with any evidence, just “oh, it must be these two people”, one of whom WE HAVE NEVER MET. Oh, and a second mystery? It’s resolved by the person revealing themselves for fun and giggles.

Disclosure

I received a free copy of this book through Amazon First Reads. I am not friends with the author, nor have I interacted with them on social media.

The Bottom Line

An absolute train wreck of a book