In The Blink Of An Eye by Jo Callaghan

 

In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan.

Published in paperback 4th January 2024 by Simon and Schuster.

From the cover of the book:

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?

***********

DCS Kat Frank knew it would be hard to return to work after the death of her husband, but she was not expecting the challenges to include heading up a pilot programme testing the introduction of technology intended to put her out of a job. Partnered up with AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity) Lock, a state-of-the-art virtual detective, Frank is convinced that Lock's logic can never replace the gut instincts she has developed over her twenty-five years in the police force - and as her small team begin to look into cold case missing person files, she sees little to change her opinion.

Frank, Lock, Lock's creator Professor Okonedo, and Frank's handpicked officers, DI Hassan and DS Browne, get stuck into reviewing the cases of two missing young men, settling into a working relationship that seems fraught with difficulties - not least due to Frank and Lock's inability to concede that each of them might have something to teach each other. But when, against the odds, they uncover new information that brings these cases back to life, Frank and Lock find themselves unexpectedly on the same side - and Lock is the only person Frank can rely on when a twist of fate brings danger to her own door.

In the Blink of an Eye is an astonishingly accomplished debut novel, in a near future setting that is so real you can almost taste it. Callaghan's quite brilliant premise is to bring together two detectives whose views on what each other bring to the table could not be more different - the very human DCS Frank and the AI detective- of-the-future Lock - and let the sparks fly.

The story unfurls through two separate cases that highlight a whole parcel of preconceptions on the part of individual members of the team - including Lock. As the threads of the investigations twist and turn, the plot hinges on a series of moments that starkly contrast and compare Frank and Lock's firmly held beliefs in instinct and logic. Frank's crippling grief and her worries for her son are palpable things, central to the relationship that develops between her and Lock, but Callaghan also takes great care to fill out all her human characters through glimpses of their personal lives, to powerful effect when the threads collide in spectacular style.

This cracking crime novel thrums with emotion, especially when it comes to loss, which I think comes very much from the place Callaghan was in when she wrote it (I promise you an Acknowledgment chapter at the end which will make you cry). There are so many relatable moments, and some lovely flashes of humour too. It touches on so many issues around modern policing; tight budgets; the pitfalls and benefits of AI technology; reliance on hard statistics; how unconscious bias plays a part in our thought processes; and rooting out prejudice and racism - as well as offering a really thought provoking look at cutting edge experiments in more than one sphere. But more than anything, it is a superb exploration of what it means to be human.

My heart was in my mouth throughout this super slick, original police procedural. I absorbed it in one delicious bite, and had a little cry at the surprisingly touching ending. It has real legs to run and run as a series, and I cannot wait to read book two, Leave No Trace, which is out at the end of March. More please!

In the Blink of an Eye is available to buy now in hardcover, paperback, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Jo Callaghan works full time as a senior strategist, carrying out research into the future impact of AI and genomics on the workforce. She was a student of the Writers' Academy Course (Penguin Random House) and was longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Writing Competition and Bath Novel Competition.

 After losing her husband to cancer in 2019 when she was just forty-nine, she started writing In the Blink of an Eye, her debut crime novel, which explores learning to live with loss and what it means to be human. 

She lives with her two children in the Midlands, where she spends far too much time tweeting as @JoCallaghanKat and is currently working on further novels in the series.