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

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Faster, fairer, evidence-based decisions for a fraction of the cost certainly sounds attractive, but early research suggests the need for caution. So called “predictive policing” uses historical information to identify possible future perpetrators and victims, but studies have shown that the source data for this kind of modelling can be riddled with preconceptions, generating, for example, results that categorise people of colour as disproportionately “dangerous” or “lawless”. A 2016 Rand Corporation study concluded that Chicago’s “heat map” of anticipated violent crime failed to reduce gun violence, but led to more arrests in low-income and racially diverse neighbourhoods.

The introduction of AI into policing is an interesting concept and Callaghan offers both sides - seen through the characters' lenses but with balance. Kat and her boss are cynical about politicians' intention to cut resources / officers and replace them with technology not capable of nuance and intuition. Whereas the technology's creator is distrustful of police for those very 'human' reasons. What, then, is essentially human about the novel? My own answer has to do with the ways in which we unruly people rebel against forms, break them when they ask to be followed. It has to do with the ways people marry their own physical experiences of the world to texts that have been read for centuries and, in doing so, revise and alter them. I start there, but I’m still trying to figure out what it is that human beings bring to the work of writing a story. That feels like an important question, a question that should feel urgent to any person who loves to read. It’s a question that is made more urgent by LLMs. I’m grateful they exist to challenge us. In the Blink of an Eye is fresh, innovative and very very clever. Flawlessly paced, plotted and researched, it’s laugh out loud, heart-achingly sad and doesn’t have a dull moment. I raced through it. Simply sensational’ M. W. CRAVEN AI versus human experience. Logic versus instinct. With lives on the line can the pair work together before someone else becomes another statistic? The kind of fresh and fearless debut I just adore. Wildly original, heartfelt, funny, and properly thrilling. Take a bow, Jo Callaghan' Chris Whitaker

Jo Callaghan makes her entry into the crowded police procedural genre with a fresh take on the buddy-buddy cop trope. In the Blink of an Eye predicts the near future when police officers and their AI counterparts will work hand-in-holographic-hand. The human-AI interactions between the lead protagonists as they pursue their quarry are illuminating and, at times, hilarious. Provocative and compelling. A TV series seems a certainty’ VASEEM KHAN I did some research and was amazed to discover that people were actively researching and piloting the use of AI in crime and became fascinated by all the debates about whether data-based algorithms could lead to fairer and more transparent policing. This opened up even more questions about how humans make decisions, and whether ‘gut instinct’ is just another word for prejudice, or, as Malcolm Gladwell argues in Blink, is the result of evidence-based decision-making processes too fast for most humans to comprehend. It fired off so many ideas in my brain, that I couldn’t wait to write a new take on the cop duo, by pairing an AI detective driven by algorithms with a human partner who makes decisions with their gut. But unfortunately, my husband was very ill, and so I didn’t start writing it until after he died in 2019. It then became a much more layered novel, as it allowed me to explore (and process) issues of love, loss and what it means to be human. I started reading this morning and ten hours later I've finished it! It's so, SO good - really properly compelling, impossible to put down - I was desperate for the solution to the mystery - but so human and moving and massively thought-provoking on what makes us human' Laura Marshall This has to be a strong contender for crime debut of the year - sharp, perceptive writing and a brilliant new take on the detective duo' T. M. Logan

With well-drawn characters, believable emotions and an interesting premise, you can see this becoming a TV series. 7/10’ Independent To those of us who have been writing in collaboration with machines for many years – a motley and multigenerational community of bot programmers, computational linguists, hobbyist novel generators and poets of chance – the output of the most recent LLMs, of which GPT-4 is currently the most famous, is notable for its blandness. For years we have been freely sharing tools and their creations on the internet, developing codes of ethics and innovations in aesthetics, only to find an unimaginable monster landing in our midst. That monster is not artificial intelligence but profit. Profit-seeking use of literary machines necessitates sanding down every rough edge, felicity of error, eeriness of syntax and exposure of the inhuman that most interests their keenest human collaborators. The further such machines climb out of the uncanny valley, the duller they appear, because they have become familiar. Jo Callaghan makes her entry into the crowded police procedural genre with a fresh take on the buddy-buddy cop trope. In the Blink of an Eye predicts the near future when police officers and their AI counterparts will work hand-in-holographic-hand. The human-AI interactions between the lead protagonists as they pursue their quarry are illuminating and, at times, hilarious. Provocative and compelling. A TV series seems a certainty’ VASEEM KHAN Callaghan also uses the investigations to showcase the stark difference that can exist between humanity and intelligence. Between understanding human nature and a dogged pursuit of logic. Reading has always been a bridge, a way of knowing that in the vast expanse of human existence, our joys and sorrows, fears and hopes are shared. But how does one reconcile this when the bridge is built by algorithms and code? While literature’s most extraordinary gift may be its ability to awaken empathy, it’s a curious endeavour to try to connect, to really feel, for something fundamentally unfeeling.It’s phenomenal . . . Perfect blend of police procedural and techno thriller and kept me guessing right to the end!’ Steph Broadribb