In the Blink of an Eye
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?
In the Blink of an Eye is a dazzling debut from an exciting new voice and asks us what we think it means to be human.
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Jo Callaghan
Jo Callaghan lives in central England and works on artificial intelligence strategies. Her debut novel, In the Blink of an Eye is the first book in the four-part Kat & Lock series. Novel won the prestigious Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award in the UK in 2024, the year of its publication.
Kat & Lock
Kat & Lock consists of four books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
Reviews and Comments
In the Blink of an Eye is the British author’s debut novel. What caught my attention was that Detective Kat Frank’s partner is Lock, an AI assistant in the form of a hologram. The book weaves into the standard crime thriller plot a discussion of whether AI is suitable for criminal investigations, and what benefits and drawbacks it might have. Lock is self-learning and constantly strives to find ways to work with human intuition and logic. At first, there are difficulties on both sides. Humans also struggle to accept AI’s access to and use of the vast amounts of data it processes, which it primarily treats as statistics. Since three books in the series have already been published and a fourth is on the way, the outcome of this collaboration is predictable. I might read the next installment to see if the treatment of the subject improves from here.