Thank you Harper Audio for this gifted ALC.

Heather Graham is usually a slam dunk for me. She’s a solid writer, with bingeable popcorn thrillers. But The Murder Machine was not good. It had all the potential. It reminded me of the premise of the Die Hard 4 with Justin Long. AI was not a tangible thing in 2007, but hacking on an electric grid level was beginning to become a real fear then. I remember being legitimately afraid of that concept: fighting an invisible, intangible monster. So when I saw that was the premise for The Murder Machine - I was there.

But.

I literally had to check that this book was written by a woman, because Agent Victoria screamed FMC written by a man. It was condescending. The mansplaining from Jude was insulting. This book would have been good if it weren’t for the completely deplorable characters of Jude and Victoria.

AI takes center stage in this novel, where a woman appears to have been murdered by the AI that controls every aspect of her home. Two FBI agents are tasked with finding out what happened and even more worryingly finding out if it could happen again.