If you begin to think Lou Gilmond’s new thriller Divinity Games is actually a report from the near future, you would be forgiven. Many of the plot elements she has assembled in this eye-opening book parallel current trends here in the US, Britain and around the world.
The story, takes place in the UK and involves corrupt politicians, a muzzled media, super-rich tech entrepreneurs and an elite group of people who want to capitalise on the wealthy-by-domination opportunity. But standing in their way – we hope, at least – are a crusading member of parliament called Harry Colbey and his colleague, Esme Kanha. Only they, with few allies, can thwart the group’s ascension to power.
In Colbey’s London, the deep penetration of artificial intelligence is rapidly producing a surveillance state. Cameras, listening device and drones are its information-gathering tools. When the government in power recognises Colbey’s threat, his train pass and credit cards no longer work, he cannot get a signal on his cell phone, and when he reaches a traffic light, it turns red. In short, every movement and conversation is monitored, and he is effectively blocked from participating in society. As a result, he’s camped out in his office for months, because he cannot be arrested within the building. But he’s clever.
A reclusive billionaire has acquired multiple government contracts to develop and run a massive data collection and analysis system that he’s named Divinity. He funds his efforts with the help of a group of about 50 investors, called the Owners, who stand to reap enormous wealth from the system. It has developed to the point that it regularly predicts people’s thoughts, based on their micro-expressions and its deep repository of information about them.
There’s a humanity-writ-small side to this story as well. Colbey’s daughter, Chloe, is becoming engaged to the son of the Owners’ chairman, a young man and family Colbey is determined not to like. It’s a relationship that his ex-wife, Clarissa, supports, as an Owner herself. In a prologue, she’s attending an Owners’ event at the opera house when she receives a call from someone who asks her to meet him outside. A man emerges from the park, pursued by a vicious group of hooligans, called Mobsters, who beat the man until heeding Clarissa’s command to stop. They claim they were just enforcing the rules – the curfew in place over the city – but the man has managed to give Clarissa something. What, exactly, turns out to be critical for both her family and society.
The plot of this story is riveting, as Harry and Esme navigate the political turmoil created by a prime minister whose questionable ethics are compromised further by his desire to become an Owner. You don’t need to have read the previous novels in the series – Dirty Geese and Palisade – but if you have you’ll know that Lou Gilmond has a knack for creating plausible, look-where-we’re-heading scenarios. I found some of the dialog a bit stiff at first, but that may be in part a difference in US-UK communication styles. Despite the thick substrate of technology here, the story isn’t geeky, and author handles it well.
Harry and Esme, a pink-haired journalist and a few others who join them, see the dangerous direction events are taking. However, as in real life, most people are too occupied with their own concerns to take such a seemingly abstract problem seriously. Even if they do, the sense of powerlessness to do anything about it stalls any action. Warnings are dismissed. False hope that everything will be all right prevails. So much consequential stuff is going on that the author may be forgiven for not making the lead characters more engaging. Daughter Chloe is especially uninteresting, for example.
Nevertheless, this is an important book, particularly if it helps move readers into a more considered appraisal of the directions technology may be taking us and the perils of complacency. Gilmond’s view that people of good will rise to the occasion ought to be encouraging, but the brakes she applies in this scenario very nearly fail.
You might also try The Trap by Ava Glass.
Armillary Books
Print/Kindle/
£9.19
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
