2025/016: Jessica Jones: Playing with Fire — Lauren Beukes, Vita Ayala, Sam Beckbessinger, Zoe Quinn, Elsa Sjunneson: narrated by Fryda Wolff

The only thing I'm better at than beating myself up is proving people wrong out of spite. [chapter 11]

Audiobook, well-narrated with excellent sound effects and a personable narrator. I enjoyed the TV series, and this has very much the same ambience: Jessica Jones is superpowered (though the book doesn't go into the details of how she acquired her powers) and suffering from CPTSD due to horrible things in her past (again, not explained here: Kilgrave is mentioned a couple of times in passing). She investigates crimes. Her therapist, Mel, suggests that she take on a straightforward case with low stakes, so Jessica begins to investigate a missing person -- Jamie Green, twenty years old, formerly estranged from his father due to his powers, but turned up missing when they were supposed to reunite. Needless to say, the case is not straightforward and the stakes are high. Jessica's usual approach of drinking whiskey and hitting things may not be enough.

I really liked this, though I do find audiobooks harder to keep in my mind than ebooks or physical books: something about not being able to page back and forward, or highlight key passages. Still, the story flowed well despite each chapter being written by different people: this is the Serial Box model and it worked very well here. I'm no more than vaguely aware of this corner of the Marvel universe, but that plus the contextual material in the novel was sufficient for me to make sense of character interactions. The story was packed with dark humour, gritty realism, alternative lifestyles and well-rounded characters. I liked it a lot, and will try more Serial Box audiobooks, especially if they're in the Audible Plus catalogue!