I read IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE by Jo Callaghan and was totally on board with this one. This was a fantastic procedural with tension and emotions running high. Loved the characters and the relationship with the AI brainiac. Some of the race and gender statements took away from the story (imo). Kept it from being a 5 star read for me.
Thank you NetGalley, Jo Callaghan and Simon and Schuster UK for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Leave No Trace is the exciting new book in the Kat and Lock series and it did not disappoint.

Kat and Lock have finally been given the first current case after a man is found brutally murdered at the top of Mount Judd.

Kat along with DI Hassan, DS Browne and Lock's mentor Professor Okenado are racing the clock to make an arrest.

Lock , I just love Lock . He is the new way of policing as he is Artificial Intelligence .

It might sound crazy but his personality is developing and humans puzzle him but he can get answers before you can blink.

Tension mounts with every chapter, bodies are piling up.

My only complaint is now I have to wait for Book 3 in what is fast becoming one of my top series to follow.

Please take time to read the authors notes at the end of the book, it is very enlightening.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Random House/Random House Trade Paperbacks for the privilege or reading and reviewing Leave No Trace.

I ended up DNF this book. It was grusome, and way too woke. I am also not a fan of AI so that didn't help

This is the second in a series of stories about DC Kat Frank and her Artificial Intelligence partner, Lock. AI is being used as an experiment to see if it can add value to police investigations. After all, AI can research and process data in matter of minutes vs. a team of policemen taking weeks to do the same job. After being experimentally used to work cold cases, Kat and Lock are now assigned to hunt down an active serial killer. One who strips men naked and nails them to a cross.

As Kat and Lock learn to work together, there is a blending of her human intuition with his logic. Kat refers to Lock as an “it.” While others see him as seemingly human. As a hologram, Lock is a handsome, well built young man. However, he has the emotional capacity of …well … a computer. Their back and forth banter adds some humor to the mix. Lock is baffled by sarcasm, not to mention figures of speech. For example, when someone mentioned having had “the pants scared off him,” Lock looked immediately towards the man’s trousers awaiting the drop.

I was intrigued by the mystery, enjoyed the relationship between Kat and Lock, and the ending was full of tension and excitement. If you like police procedurals with a British flair, this is one I highly recommend.

Thanks much to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read and review this ARC.

Oh my goodness, this book was so good! I love reading about Kat and Lock, really the whole team! Crime books can be so dry and procedural, this story brought all of it to life and I find myself so ready and excited for the next book in the series! I adore Lock and wish that I had a Lock of my very own to share with. Brilliant work, can’t wait to read the next book!

Kat and Lock are perfect together. I love how this book picked up right where the last one ended but this time we have a serial offender on the hook. The AI element in this book is just fascinating. I think that this book does a fantastic job of outlying out we can benefit from the use of AI. I don’t think that AI belongs in creative spaces, but in terms of being a tool for different settings it works. I know it’s really helping in the medical community, and I think it could be useful in policing as well and this book highlights how it could be helpful. I love how the different perspectives were handled. I often struggle if there aren’t clear chapter headings so am always leery when they aren’t there, however this author did such a great job switching but making it clear that I did fine without it. I love how the layers of this book were divulged. It felt like we were slowly unpeeling layers of an onion, and the big reveal was so good! I loved the twist and just how the author did it, so good. I loved everything about this book and hope we get another!

This is a book that could work as a standalone, but I think I got so much more out of it because I read the first one first. You get all the background on Lock and how he came to be, and I think that was so insightful.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication date: Jan. 7, 2025
“Leave No Trace” is the second novel in the “Kat and Lock” series by Jo Callaghan. Following a police detective, Kat Frank, and her partner, an AI-generated police investigator named Lock, “Trace” is a detective story for the modern world.
In the middle of a snowstorm, a young man’s body is found naked and crucified on a cross at the top of a local hill. In hopes of raising support and confidence in the police force, Kat Frank and her AI-partner are called in to investigate. It isn’t long after that when a second man is found, crucified as well, and Kat is facing pressure to solve the case before another body turns up. The Future Policing Unit, and Kat herself, are thrust into the media spotlight, which only makes the deadline to solve the crime that much tighter. Kat knows that if she doesn’t get to the bottom of these gruesome murders, her job (and those of her entire team) could be at risk.
“In the Blink of an Eye” is the first novel in this series (and, in fact, is the first novel by this author) and I thoroughly devoured it. I loved the idea of an AI-generated detective helping to solve cases, without the emotional components that burden his human counterparts. I was so happy when Callaghan created a sequel, bringing Kat and Lock back into my life!
Although the first novel was fascinating and helped build the backstory of the characters, “Trace” can be read as a stand-alone (but I wouldn’t recommend it).
“Trace” is narrated by Kat, although there are snippets throughout the novel where the serial killer briefly takes over, allowing the readers the ability to see through their eyes, if only for a brief moment. In pure detective drama style, there are plenty of characters with which to choose the suspect from, but the final reveal was as surprising as it was meaningful.
Callaghan’s personal experiences helped create both “Blink” and “Trace” and, although I’m sorry for all of her challenges, I think it has helped to make the stories that much better. I can almost feel the personal connection to both the author and to the novel’s characters. Callaghan’s novel is well-developed, well-formed, creative and engaging and I’m so looking forward to novel number three.

I enjoyed Leave No Trace very much. Jo Callaghan has created an surprisingly likeable character in Locke, an AI assistant who grows emotionally and intellectually the more he's around people. I love the interaction between him and Kat, the chief investigator, but even more than that, I love how Callaghan delves into each character, including the killer, and shows what makes them tick. It's the humanity of each character (including the AI, Locke) that makes this detective novel so readable and engaging. I tend not to like series detective novels, but Locke and Kat have grown on me.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Net Galley for providing a free e-ARC edition of this title in exchange for my review.

I haven't read others by this author, and I see that this is book 2 in a series, so I am picking it up out of order. I'd read good things about the characters in book 1, so I was excited for the opportunity to read this one. But I was really disappointed. The story felt poorly put together and rushed. Some of the character issues could be due to not reading the pervious book, but not all of the trouble with this one.

I might go back to book 1 and give it a try, as I'd heard so much about it. But I wasn't impressed by this one.

2 stars for "it was ok"

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the eARC.
The 1st book was good, I liked it and was looking forward to the 2nd. Unfortunately, it was disappointing to me. The 1st murder was gruesome and the team, instead of working on a cold case are tasked with this one to see how AI Locke will handle a fresh case. So far, so good ...
But the rest of the book spent way too much time being woke; it was so in your face that it started being irritating to me.
I hope the next in the series will be as good as the 1st one. Sorry!

Thank you Random House and Netgalley for providing the advance copy of the second book in the Kat & Lock series. I highly recommend this book and its predecessor In the Blink of an Eye. This is a police procedural/ serial killer series, but has so much heart that the crime part is almost secondary to the relationship stories. I found many passages to be deeply touching, centered on grief, loss, and connections.

Excellent police procedural! Don't miss this one but start with her first book In the Blink of An Eye to get the full impact. I enjoyed reading them back to back.

DCS Kat Frank of the Warwickshire Police and her team have been part of a secret pilot program called the Future Police Unit (FPU) using AI to help solve cold cases with 100% success. Now she asks her boss, Chief Constable McLeish, for a chance to handle a 'live' case. He's just received a phone call that the naked body of a dead male has just been found crucified on top of Mount Judd so he hands that over to them. But when another body is found and it becomes apparent that a serial killer is at work, the pressure is on to solve this quickly before anyone else dies.

When news of the police secretly using AI in this case leaks to the public, pressure from above is turned up and Kat's team might have to be replaced to keep the public appeased. Too many middle-aged white men are worried about women and technology taking their jobs. Can they dig deeper and find the murderer before they are replaced?

The AI in this pilot program has been designed by Professor Okonedo who leads a multi-disciplinary team at the National Institute for AI; her creation has been designated as Artificially Intelligent Detecting Entity (AIDE) Lock. 'It' is capable of wading through vast amounts of data and providing answers almost immediately that would take a human many hours or even days, such as sifting through CCTV recordings or social media for facial recognition. But 'it' can sometimes miss the nuances of human facial expressions and those are important too in an investigation.

This forward-thinking plot is quite interesting and tense but with some levity sprinkled in. I really enjoyed these characters and their interactions. Callaghan brings in several emotionally-heavy topics, such as losing a spouse and carrying on alone; or deciding whether to become a single mother. Even whether an AI can be a 'person' and have friends. And boy, the final action scene leading to the conclusion is top-notch. All-in-all, a very exciting read which I highly recommend.

Many thanks to the author and publisher for offering me widgets for books 1 and 2 in his series. I dove right in and couldn't put them down. High points given for a very unique police procedural. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

Detective Chief Superintendent (DCS) Kat Frank and the AI detective Lock were introduced in the first book in this series, In the Blink of an Eye. Even if you did not read that book, you can enjoy this one.

A man has been crucified and his ears cut off. Kat and Lock have been successful with cold cases, so they are now given the opportunity to take on this case. Within days, there is a second victim, and Kat’s team is under pressure to find the killer before their team is either again relegated to cold cases only or disbanded.

The examination of grief, trauma, and what it means to be human make this novel much more than a detective procedural.

I am disappointed to report that once again, we do not get Lock as Detective Pikachu, despite that the second book in the Kat and Lock series was still great.

In book two, we get to see them and their team work a live murder case. A man is found dead crucified on a cross on a hill, with numerous possible suspects and not a lot of evidence. The team scrambles for most of the book for any lead on the killer. Which is where this book struggles, we see Kat steadfast in her morals, clash with her direct superior who wants her to arrest literally anyone as tension mounts with the public, and a reporter who keeps popping up at the wrong time to spread information Kats not ready to release. The book drags a bit here, as the Detectives keep going back to interview the same people many times because they don't have a true suspect.

Here is where I wish the author developed the secondary characters more, so many opportunities, but instead, we have the bare minimum. So bare I honestly forgot their names except Debbie because her pregnancy and her determination to not let it get in the way of her work is her whole personality.

Hopefully, if there is a book three, which I think there will be, we get to see more of the rest of the team. I loved Kats character development as she continued to move through her grief, it's not fast it's realistic, as well as her relationships with the other people in her life from before her husband died.

All in all, I really enjoyed the second book, and I look forward to another! Thank you, Random House Publishing and NetGalley, for the ARC!

Jo Callaghan’s second book definitely did not suffer from sophomore slump. I thought Leave No Trace was even better than vIn The Blink of an Eye and I loved it. Not only was Leave No Trace a super police procedural, but this time Kat and Locke were in charge of a live case involving a sadistic and ritualistic murder, which made it hard to put down. Once again Callaghan shows us how extremely helpful data analysis by AI could be, but also how instinct and an understanding of human emotions by another human was essential.

Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the copy of Leave No Trace by Jo Callaghan. I loved the first book in this series and I loved this one too. Lock has learned so much and remains intriguing. I loved how contentious it was to involve it/him, and how Kat seems to be warming up to it/him. It’s worth it to read “In The Blink Of An Eye” first to see how their relationship has developed. I’m not sure this was as good as the first book, but it was still a fast and gripping read. I can’t wait to see what happens next!

Did you read Blink of an Eye? If not, I would recommend starting there. Callaghan has done an excellent job of building complex and intriguing characters and some back story from book 1 would help. BUT, if you want to jump in, there is enough included in Leave No Trace to catch you right up.

In Leave No Trace, Detective Kat Frank is still struggling with the death of her husband, her now empty nest and her assignment of working with the AI Detective. Her distrust and outright dislike for Artificial Intelligence biases her, but she is beginning to work better with AI Detective Lock and the team she leads has closed multiple cold cases.

When the body of a man is found crucified, the team has there first chance at working a live case. Callaghan pulls off an exciting thriller while still juggling the story of the AI detective and the personal issues that each detective is struggling with. This is another extraordinary book that manages to present a gripping procedural, speculative fiction and plenty of real human feelings. I loved it and you will too! I simply can't wait for the next Lock mystery.
#randomhouse #leavenotrace #jocallaghan #AIpolice

⚠️Outlier review
This book began with an intriguing premise:
On a desolate hill, a man is found naked, mutilated and crucified. It would appear to be a highly personal killing. He does have a fiancé with a weak alibi.💁🏻‍♀️ Could it have been work related? Or some sort of twisted religious killing?

As Detective Kat Frank and her team, (including AI-Detective Lock) begin their investigation, a second murder is reported under similar circumstances. Can the team track down this serial killer before he murders again?

Then…out of the blue the author lobs in a statement that to me was absolutely irrelevant to the flow of the storyline. Hmm…it seemed to quickly morph into a platform for all social issues. So distracting that I completely lost focus of the storyline.😫

AI Lock appeared to take a backseat when the primary focus should have been on him. I loved the concept of AI Lock and so looked forward to see how he would assist in this latest investigation.
Equally disappointing, the supporting detectives on the team who added so much in book one, also didn’t get the spotlight they deserved here. A missed opportunity (IMHO).

I do think it’s important to include relevant social issues as it fits a storyline…but it shouldn’t become the major focus in a fictional novel. Personally, I read to escape.

Other readers absolutely loved this book so make sure to read their reviews.

There appears to be a book three on the horizon. Will I pick it up? Yes! I love the characters and hope the magic of book one comes back!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group

4.5 Stars. I recently read and enjoyed the highly original, thrilling and thought-provoking 'In the Blink of an Eye' by Jo Callaghan. It featured the unique team of DC Kat Frank and AIDE Lock. They are part of the four-person FPU (Future Policing Unit), which also consists of DI Rayan Hassan and DS Debbie Browne, who work under Kat's direction. I was thrilled to receive the ARC for 'Leave No Trace,' the second book in the Kat and Lock saga. The dynamics of their interactions provide a great deal of unintentional humour.

When the widowed and grief-stricken Kat returned to work, she was given the experimental pilot project to work with Lock. She was lonely and not coping well in her empty home. Her son is attending university, making friends and living an independent, content life. Kat throws herself into her detective work as a distraction. At first, she felt the pilot project would fail and tended to be impatient and rude to Lock. Taking place in the near future, the experiment was to determine the value of AI alongside regular police investigations. Lock is an AIDE (artificial intelligence detecting entity), and Kat has become aware of its value. DS Brown is heavily pregnant but refuses to take maternity leave. She constantly asks for more assignments.

Kat tends to rely on instinct, emotion, and hunches in her investigations and is considered a highly successful detective. Lock is programmed for rapid data analysis and to make almost instant connections by processing written articles, photos, etc. Professor Okenado designed it to be free of bias, work by logic, and learn from conversations with humans.

The AIDE is a monitor that Kat wears on her wrist. It comes with several human-like holographic forms that can be manifested and seen. The most commonly used is an appealing, charming detective named Lock. Because Lock is AI, Kat refers to him as IT. He is confused by human emotions, unable to understand sarcasm, and has no filter in his speech; Kat often turns him off from embarrassment.

Because the FPU team successfully solved cold cases, Kat demanded they work with a live case. The first one is grotesque. A young man has been crucified on top of a frigid garbage dump in midwinter with his ears removed. This is quickly followed by a similar death of a man crucified in a vacant lonely farmer's field in a similar manner, and his eyes are missing. So, it seems like a serial killer is at work and may strike again.

The four detectives, including Lock, are frantic about solving the murders quickly. They are not without their personal distractions. DI Hassan has a crush on Professor Okenado, the stylish black professor who designed Lock. She rejects him due to her valid reason for distrusting the police. A local reporter, Elie Baxter, has written articles that have been widely read, so the FPU has been ordered to hold a press conference to restore public confidence. The outcome is full of hateful racial slurs against Okenado and vicious statements against the AIDE. Men are warned to avoid leaving pubs alone and to be constantly aware of danger. This caution has insulted and angered men.

Lock is becoming assertive, demanding changes. He insists on being called He rather than IT and firmly suggests that Kat not turn him off at night. For an entity devoid of emotions, he seems anguished not to have a solid physical body. What does this all mean?
A word of caution if you are ordering either book. For books of brilliant originality, the titles are identical to the exact titles of other books, so be careful to choose the correct ones in this series.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this compelling book, which will be published on January 7th, 2025.

DCS Kat Frank and AIDE Lock are back and taking on a new case in Leave No Trace! Kat is human and Lock is the world's first AI detective. They are quite an interesting detective duo who tackle their investigations using both logic and intuition.

When a man is found crucified, everyone is horrified. Who could do such a thing? Why? That is what Kat and Lock plan to find out. As they delve into their investigation, another man is found crucified. The public is on edge, the investigators are on edge, and the local media has been unforgiving. Kat and Lock must find the killer before the killer finds another victim!

I love the uniqueness of this investigative team. We hear about AI every day and author, Jo Callaghan, is using an AI detective in Leave No Trace to perform investigative work at an extremely fast pace. With lives on the line, this is of the utmost importance.

I love the dynamic between Kat and Lock. Kat is an experienced detective who knows how to read people, look at crime scenes, and uses intuition to help solve crimes. Lock is very black and white as he is ruled by logic. He cannot see the shades of grey and relies on Kat to explain them to him.

This is a tough case, and I enjoyed trying to do my own super sleuthing along with Kat and Lock. I loved the mystery as to who was killing the men and why. I also loved the sense of unease and dread which flowed throughout the book. I also enjoyed how the author shows how various members of the team interact with Locke and how he goes about his work.

Readers also get some glimpses of some of the characters’ private lives which we were first introduced to in the first book, In the Blink of An Eye. While this book would work as a stand-alone, I highly recommend reading the first book in the series! Jo Callaghan dazzled me with her writing and the plot of In the Blink of An Eye. She continued to wow me and keep me guessing with Leave No Trace.

If you enjoy police procedurals, you may enjoy this book.

Wonderfully written, gripping, shocking, fast paced and well thought out!