Detective Chief Superintendent Kat Frank returns to work after the death of her husband and is put in charge of a pilot scheme into the use of AI. Will this new technology have a positive or negative effect on solving crimes…?
In the Blink of an Eye is a police procedural with a difference due to the AI scheme.
It has been an emotional few months for Kat but she is ready to return to her policework, only this time she has an AI member of the team to contend with. Lock can take on different manifestations but cannot attune to the subtleties of human compassion and gut instinct that Kat thinks are crucial to being a good officer.
The first stumbling block is the choice of case to investigate. Kat has been told that she is only able to look at cold cases under the AI remit. Her team choose one case and the AI programme picks another. She decides to investigate both to compare and contrast human versus robot but she starts to notice unexpected similarities in the two cases.
The majority of the book is written to show the police investigation but there are also chapters to show an unnamed man being held captive and drugged. The latter creates a wonderful tension and I made the asumption that the man is one of the two missing teens, but which one? I was completely swept up in the plot and lives of the characters. The AI element gave a unique and fascinating dimension to the book which I really enjoyed.
In the Blink of an Eye is a brilliant police procedural with a great team (human and virtual!)
Book blurb
In the UK, someone is reported missing every 90 seconds.
Just gone. Vanished. In the blink of an eye.
DCS Kat Frank knows all about loss. A widowed single mother, Kat is a cop who trusts her instincts. Picked to lead a pilot programme that has her paired with AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity) Lock, Kat’s instincts come up against Lock’s logic. But when the two missing person’s cold cases they are reviewing suddenly become active, Lock is the only one who can help Kat when the case gets personal.
AI versus human experience.
Logic versus instinct.
With lives on the line can the pair work together before someone else becomes another statistic?
