In The Blink of An Eye: A BBC Between the Covers Book Club Pick

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It's most certainly crime fiction, but there's an element of speculative fiction too, with the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (or AI) used as a tool to help police investigations.

It staggers me that this is a debut, the author has such a talent for writing and I’m so sorry for your loss. Her boss, Chief Constable McLeish has her head up a pilot project working alongside an Artificial Intelligence Detecting Entity (AIDE) named Lock, who appears as a hologram, very much a character and personality in his own right, the brainchild of Warwick University's Professor Okonedo, a woman with her own agenda.Lock’s features resemble those of Chad Botwick, I thought that was a cute tribute to the late actor.

I met Jo at Capital Crime in London in September 2022 and was lucky enough to get a proof of her new book In The Blink of An Eye which has had some absolutely RAVE reviews and the word on the street is that this book is going to be HUGE. Each one has something to add to the story and each one has the potential to grow as the series develops. All the hallmarks on traditional police procedurals are very much in play: trawling CCTV, social media, and devices, as well as good ole face-to-face interviews. She's grieving, she's a little lost, she has so many memories to deal with, but she's determined to get back to work. The whole process of choosing which missing persons to concentrate on is complex in itself, and as time moves on, it becomes clear that there's far more to these cases than originally thought.Sorry to go all philosophical on you guys, but good on the author for tackling such a controversial, moral, and ethical issue, and incorporating it into a police environment in the novel way that she did. There’s such a thought-provoking consideration of morality threaded through as the catalyst for the narrative so that even when In the Blink of an Eye is finished, it resonates and unsettles the reader. I thought I might struggle with this original AI concept but it did not seem implausible, and I wasn’t bamboozled by any major technical gobbledegook.

Lock is programmed with the intention of implementing ongoing learning, there are issues that arise, such as creating a hologram of a missing son, and inappropriate information sharing and thinking, with his mother. It's a novel that I read in a couple of sittings, with such a unique premise, and one that has stayed with me since I turned the final page.With well-drawn characters, believable emotions and an interesting premise, you can see this becoming a TV series. Such an original concept and so brilliantly executed, but also a story to make you think, and one that throws up unexpected questions about life, grief, loss, and the human mind .