Unique police procedural and crime thriller debut.

The first in a series, this book features DCS Kat Frank who has been asked to head up a pilot project at the Warwickshire Police that involves her and a select team pairing with an AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detecting Entities) unit to investigate cold cases. It will be an experiment to see the difference between human and machine approach to crime solving. Can they learn from each other? Kat and Lock (the name of this particular unit) begin with a series of missing person cases.

This was quite interesting and entertaining as it was different to most in this genre due to the fact that Kat's main partner is basically a "glorified Alexa" as she puts it. Although the machine can rapidly crunch all kinds of data in seconds, there is no feeling, intuition, or gut instinct involved in its decision making. As the duo and the other two team members, DI Hassan and DS Browne, as well as Professor Okonedo (the inventor) start looking into the disappearances of several young adults, it is quite rocky as they try to work out strengths and weaknesses in their approach.

I enjoyed the interplay between the characters and the evolution of the machine into becoming a part of the team. Acceptance of something new is challenging for them all, and there is also the fear of humans being replaced by AI always at the back of their minds. The particular plot and investigative part of this book was actually secondary to the whole artificial intelligence aspect but was satisfactory as far as a case. I understand there are already 2 more books in this series and I do intend to read them.

I was able to listen to the audio book while also following along in the e-book ARC provided by the publisher. I enjoyed both narrators but wish the male voice had been used for the voice of Lock just to enhance the production quality.

Seems like a series that could easily be adapted for television as well. Definitely a lot of interest in AI right now with all of the surrounding controversy.

A refreshing view of a police procedural novel.

DCS Kat Frank is ready to go back to work. She has been on leave after the passing of her husband. She has taken time off to be with her high school-aged son. She is grieving but knows she has to start work to keep her mind entertained, or she will go crazy.

Her boss assigns her to a pilot program. She is going to have the first AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity) working with her. His name is Lock. After completing her team, they go to work on solving a couple of cold cases. Then, when they discover the two cases are connected and become a live case, Kat and Lock will have to work together against the clock to hopefully save a kidnapped victim.

I can't believe this was a debut novel by Jo Callaghan. 'In the Blink of An Eye' was engaging, entertaining, and unputdownable. The characters are all fleshed out, and I want to know more about all of them. I love Lock and Kat together. They make an amazing team. It's so interesting how Lock is learning and becoming more. Too bad he isn't human.

Cliffhanger: No

4/5 Fangs

What a great storyline! In this novel Kat a widowed police officer who is paired with Lock and artificial intelligence Detective. This was a very thought provoking novel about the use of AI in solving cases and how this partnership evolves. Which is better human intuition or computer generated information. Without giving any spoilers I will say this is such a suspenseful and twisty story. I loved the concept of the story and was unable to put it down. I will defently be reading more of Jo Callaghan's novels. Thanks to NetGalley for this opportunity to read this novel.

This book was definitely different, I mean an AI as a cop definitely made it readable, but I wish it was a little more realistic but just randomly popping up just didn’t seem real to me

A small task force is given the assignment of working with an AI detective in order to see what help an AI could be to police and also to look for weaknesses in the AI and or police procedure.
They begin working on cold cases which leads them into a missing person crime wherein more than one person is missing but no bodies have been found.
Then the chief detectives child goes missing as well. This brings much urgency to the case as it seems related to the other cases and maybe those young men are still alive.
Eventually they see a pattern and pursue the leads which leads to a mostly satisfying conclusion.
A very readable novel. Quite enjoyable and interesting. AI Locke ( the AI ) is entertaining and the other officers are all very well developed.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me this ARC

A thought provoking journey with a blend of AI and human intuition. The novel is well paced and the narrative is engaging. The story offers a fresh take on the crime thriller genre.
Many thanks to Random House and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was an incredible book and I was actually surprised I liked it. It is science fiction but with a huge mystery and thriller aspect. I was a little worried with the Ai aspect because I am not a huge fan of using it but it worked very well in this book! I read this and immediately went right into the next book. I would recommend!

The AI take on a police procedural is what drew me into this book but I ended up getting a really interesting and bingeable mystery. The AI isn’t even the main focus of the story, which is a case involving missing teens. Callaghan puts a lot of heart into the characters and I read this whole thing easily in a few sittings.

I’ve been procrastinating on this book solely because of the cover. I didn’t know what it was about, but I’m not a fan of this cover version and was surprised to look it up on Goodreads and see a less sci-fi/more thriller type of cover that appealed to me. The ratings were also high, so at this point, I was intrigued.

Anyway, I ended up absolutely loving this one. If you’re deterred by the sci-fi vibes, push past it because I wouldn’t even really classify it as such. It’s a police procedural in which AI is used in a pilot program to assist the police force with their cold cases.

The author did a brilliant job of writing an AI character. The pairing of Kat, a seasoned member of the force, and Lock, her AI assistant, was so fun to read about. And the intensity of the cases was fantastic! Police procedurals can sometimes be quite dull, but this one never slowed for me.

My only complaint was a red herring thrown in that was never really explained (I won’t mention it for the sake of spoilers), but that’s a minor issue here. I can’t wait to read the next book in the series.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group for my gifted copy!

I was able to read "In the Blink of an Eye" by Jo Callaghan on NetGalley. I enjoyed this book so much that I immediately started reading her next one featuring Kat Frank. Kat is a widow, a mother to an 18 year old son, and a police woman. In this book she comes back to work after taking time off due to the death of her husband and is put on a special assignment, working with AI to see if that improves policework. They work on cold cases of missing persons.

I gotta admit to being skeptical about this and pushing it to the bottom of the pile but wow am I glad I finally opened it on my kindle. Kat who has been struggling since the death of her husband, as has her son Cam, agrees to work with Lock, an AI detective (go with it) on cold cases to see how well the Ai works, or doesn't. At her insistence they work on missing young men and what they find is stunning. This is a twisty buddy cop procedural that completely exceeded my expectations. No spoilers from me but I thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to reading the next in the series (as well as more after).

I really enjoyed this police procedural/AI book.

Widowed single mom DCS Kat Frank and has been asked to participate in a trial with a new AI pilot program called AIDE-Lock (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity). She wears the device on her wrist, but the program can be seen as a hologram. Kat is skeptical, she knows that no matter how well AI works, it cannot be the substitute for human instinct. She and two other detectives are looking into some cold case missing people with the assistance of Lock. Will it hinder or help?

I was thoroughly invested in this book throughout my reading experience. At first, I was as skeptical as Kat about Lock and the whole inclusion of AI. But as the book progressed I could really see how something like this would benefit investigations.

As for the mystery, missing persons cases are my favorite and this one did not disappoint. The mystery and investigations are intriguing and the clues were uncovered at a rate that kept me involved and not bored. This police procedural has all of the elements that make for a gripping, suspenseful thriller. Definitely one to look for and the sequel is coming out soon.

This is a really good book a very different take on artificial intelligence (AI) that is all the rage right now. DCS Kat has recently returned to work after the death of her husband (by cancer), she is assigned to lead a new group to solve cold cases with the use of AIDE or artificial intelligence detecting entity or more commonly known as Lock. Lock resides in a watch type of device that Kat wears on her wrist, she can also project a hologram of Lock (who chooses to be a young black man always smartly dressed). The team is trying to close cold cases involving missing people, and quickly determine that there are some that have similar aspects to them. Kat is an experienced officer with many years of knowledge, Lock has no experience but can access and review data faster than a human, he can also get under Kat's skin like no other because he has no filter, he says what he thinks based on what he's found. Kat goes more by hunch and gut when investigating. There is a bit of back and forth between the investigation and the young men who are missing, so you know there are alive at that time. I really enjoyed the interplay between Kat and Lock, though they had different ways of investigating, Lock proved to be a fast learner and instrumental during the investigation. I would highly recommend, this is book 1 in a series. Thanks to #Netgalley and #Simon and Schuster for the ARC.

So good! This should follow up with a movie. I enjoyed the characters and especially the personality of the AI. Well wriiten. A great mystery.

Detective Chief Superintendent Kat Frank returns to duty after an absence spent caring for her now deceased husband John, who was suffering from cancer. Her teen son Cam went into a depression and deep anxiety at the time and it took much work and therapy to get him to the point where he returned to school and has just completed his final exams.

Kat's boss/mentor Chief Constable McLeish wants her to head up a pilot unit that will use an Artificially Intelligent Detecting Entity (AIDE) during its investigations. Kat is negative about the idea, being convinced that an AI may be able to crunch numbers, but it can't use the human gut instinct to make the intuitive leaps necessary for moving an investigation forward. McLeish is happy, and tells her he wants her focus on only missing persons cold cases with her new unit, and use every opportunity to log when an AIDE is actually counterproductive, so he can take this as evidence to the Home Secretary, who is very pro-AI, to show her that an AIDE can't be used in policing.

Kat meets her new team, made up of DI Rayan Hassan, DS Debbie Browne, and Professor Okonedo the person (and chief programmer) in charge of the AIDE program, and the AIDE itself, Lock. Kat almost sneers at Lock once he's activated for all the team to see. Kat also mentally catalogues what she can glean about the human officers on her team; she senses that Hassan, who is very ambitious, will likely be challenging her on all her decisions, while Browne will need a bit of confidence boosting.

Kat has the team decide what case they will work on. Lock provides an analysis of which cases have the highest probability of success, and after some argument, the team settles on cases involving two young men, one who disappeared on his way to meet friends, Will Robinson, the other, Tyrone Walters, from university.

There is no obvious connection between the young men, and it is very unlikely they would have ever met, so Kat deploys Hassan and Browne on the Walters case, while she and Lock focus on Robinson.

During the review of all the information and statements and new interviews, Lock proves to be incredibly useful, analyzing huge amounts of publicly available information, such as social media, at super speed, allowing the detectives to pose, dismiss and investigate leads much faster than would normally happen. Along the way, Lock makes a number of mistakes when in the presence of an interviewee, but as Lock is a learning program, its programming adjusts, so these problems become much less frequent as the cases progress.

There are many clues that lead nowhere, but Kat becomes convinced there is a connection between the two young men, they just have to find it. Hassan continues to challenge every one of Kat's assertions, while Browne struggles to keep everyone happy while wrestling with a personal situation.

When Kat herself experiences the acute horror of a loss and her family becomes part of the investigation, McLeish benches her so the rest of the team must now handle three cases. This is when the fractious and difficult relationships between Kat and Lock and between Kat and Okonedo smoothen out and the three actually begin working harmoniously, and under the radar of the rest of the pilot unit and McLeish, to crack the three cases.

Author Jo Callaghan builds the tension to such a high every step of the investigation to the point that I could not put this book down and kept reading late into the night.

I loved that Kat was so set against the use of an AI, and slowly, very grudgingly, began to see the benefits of Lock's superfast data analysis, as well as its different way of looking at situations. I liked how the holographic apparition of Lock reminded me of the Doctor in Star Trek: Voyager when he was first activated: unable to empathize, relying completely on rightness of its analysis of data, and not appreciating the complexity of human behaviour. I really enjoyed its scoffing at the illogic of humans.

I really liked this procedural, and loved the way AI was used in the investigations, which made a lot of sense. Kat makes a lot of progress on multiple emotional fronts throughout this story: her grief for her husband, her difficulty letting go of her son, and her resistance to technology. Her growth is believably handled, as is the evolution of the investigative team. I am so glad that there is a another book after this one!

Thank you to Netgalley and to Random House Publishing Group - Random House for this ARC in exchange for my review.

I thought this debut crime thriller was so, so good! A seasoned British police detective, recently widowed, returns to her precinct and accepts the offer to lead a trial project exploring the feasibility of pairing a human detective with an Artificial Intelligence entity. The well-nuanced characters on her team engage the reader with details to complement the unfolding cold case investigation. While a few plot details perhaps strained credibility, the overall narrative impressed me with its inventiveness and humanity. 4.5 stars rounded up

In this near-future Science Fiction thriller, Callaghan writes a fast paced unique story. With well written characters, this plot doesn’t seem so far off. Paired with an AI Detective, Kat Frank is put in charge of a new program. While Kat’s not too keen on the project, it eventually turns out that it takes both of them to make it work. A new and different type of police procedural that will have you waiting impatiently for the next book in the series! Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

My favorite genres are mystery/triller and science fiction. And I had such high hopes for this book to be able to blend those two together but it fell short immensely for me. It took me forever to get through this slog as it didn't hold my attention very well, and became very repetitive. I found the mystery aspect predictable and the AI annoying without much personality. Not to mention it's just an AI hologram she wears on her wrist. I couldn't connect with the main character either, as I found her know-it-all attitude to be too over the top. Instead of that making her a strong character, it made her weak in my opinion. This book would have been a DNF for me, but I felt obligated to finish. Thank you NetGalley for the ebook.

In the Blink of an Eye is a routine procedural with some AI thrown in and some questionable science. Throughout the entire book I was wondering why a person who hated AI so much, for reasons that are explained but not really logical, partner with an AI "detective." In the end, it was OK but not something I will remember for too long.

Jo Callaghan’s In the Blink of an Eye is a gripping exploration of human intuition versus artificial intelligence, wrapped in a compelling mystery that keeps readers on the edge of their seats. The narrative centers around Kat Frank, a widowed police officer whose life has been shaped by profound loss. As a single mother, Kat embodies resilience and determination, traits that serve her well in her profession and personal life. Her intuitive approach to policing is put to the test when she is assigned to lead a groundbreaking pilot program alongside Lock, an Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity.

The premise is intriguing: the pairing of a seasoned cop with an advanced AI hologram forces both characters to navigate their contrasting methods. Lock operates on algorithms and data, analyzing patterns at lightning speed, while Kat relies on her gut feelings and experience from years on the beat. This dynamic sets the stage for a rich exploration of how human emotion and machine logic intersect, often leading to tension and unexpected revelations.

As the plot unfolds, Kat is drawn into two cold cases that unexpectedly become urgent and personal. The stakes escalate when the cases begin to intertwine with her own life, creating a palpable sense of danger. Callaghan expertly crafts a narrative that not only focuses on the mechanics of solving a mystery but also delves into the emotional landscape of its characters. Kat’s vulnerabilities are laid bare, making her a relatable and sympathetic protagonist. Her relationship with Lock evolves as they face threats together, highlighting the potential for collaboration between human insight and technological prowess.

Character development is one of the book’s strengths. Kat is fleshed out through her interactions with Lock and her struggles as a mother and a police officer. The dialogue is sharp and reveals much about her character, showing her depth and complexity. Lock, although a hologram, is portrayed with a surprising amount of personality, raising questions about the nature of consciousness and the human connection to technology. Their evolving partnership not only serves the plot but also prompts readers to ponder the implications of AI in everyday life.

The pacing of the book is brisk, with well-timed twists that maintain suspense and intrigue. Callaghan balances action with moments of introspection, allowing readers to engage with both the mystery and the underlying themes of grief, trust, and the quest for truth. The author’s vivid descriptions and attention to detail immerse readers in the story, making them feel the urgency of the cases and the weight of Kat’s personal struggles.

Fans of the mystery and thriller genre will find In the Blink of an Eye particularly appealing due to its unique premise and the ethical dilemmas it raises about technology’s role in law enforcement. The interplay of human and machine not only serves as a thrilling backdrop but also elevates the narrative, offering a fresh take on classic detective tropes. With a riveting plot, strong character arcs, and thought-provoking themes, Callaghan has crafted a novel that resonates on multiple levels, making it a must-read for anyone interested in the future of crime-solving and the complexities of human emotion.

Overall, In the Blink of an Eye is a masterful blend of suspense, character-driven storytelling, and philosophical inquiry into the nature of intelligence—both artificial and human. It challenges readers to consider how we navigate loss, connection, and the moral implications of technological advancements, all while delivering a thrilling ride through a well-crafted mystery.