DCS Kat Frank and her artificially intelligent sidekick AIDE Lock were first introduced to the crime fiction-loving public in In the Blink of an Eye, in January 2023. Since then, AI has infiltrated just about every part of life and not always for the good. So, I have to admit that the idea of reading a novel where one of the characters is an AI model, as innovative as that sounds, left me feeling a bit cold.
Having said that, all I’d heard about Jo Callaghan from other crime readers like myself was positive. In the Blink of an Eye won the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year Award in the summer of 2024 and the CWA New Blood Dagger, and Crime Fiction Lover readers have raved about Human Remains, which came out last year. Those heady days when the very thought of the police using an AI detective seemed sci-fi and somewhat far-fetched are gone, AI still doesn’t really appeal to me, but I decided to give this novel a go and it has swept away all my initial skepticism.
This author is onto a winner!
Body of Lies is the fourth – and last – book in this thought-provoking series, and fans of Frank and Lock are already in mourning for their favourite crime-solving duo. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, and instead savour this final instalment.
If you’re new to the Frank and Lock partnership, the DCS has many years of experience on the force and as the series opened was completely against the use of AI after health service robots wrongly diagnosed her husband and contributed to his death. Lock, built by Professor Okonedo, is attached to a new unit in Warwickshire with the aim or learning from the team he is working with. He ‘lives’ in a bracelet on Frank’s arm and can project himself as a human via the hologram of a black man based loosely on the late actor Chadwick Boseman.
After a somewhat fraught beginning, Frank has come to appreciate Lock’s skills – for example, he can scan multiple social media image sources at speed in order to identify a body – freeing a human officer to get on with other work, or watch every Humphrey Bogart film in minutes to understand a cultural reference. He doesn’t understand sarcasm, changes his clothes to suit the situation and is desperate to have a body. Body of Lies can be read as a standalone, but for a more nuanced read, go back to the beginning and enjoy the ride.
As Body of Lies opens, both Frank and Lock are learning in their own ways to live with the aftermath of what happened in book three, Human Remains. For widowed Frank, the loss of one of her team weighs heavily, whereas for Lock? Well, he’s a machine, isn’t he? – basically an ‘it’ and beholden to the humans who made him… Also grieving is Professor Adaiba Okonedo, Lock’s creator and a vital part of Warwickshire’s Future Policing Unit – a pilot scheme backed by the Home Secretary that uses Lock’s myriad skills to help solve major crimes.
This book begins with Frank reluctantly returning to the home that has now been restored after being badly damaged by an explosion. It’s the same… but different – and Frank’s famous gut instinct can’t help her to navigate the maelstrom of emotions churning through her. Her hometown of Coleshill is the same but different too after the body of a woman is found in the medieval stocks.
It’s Halloween, which is the first little quirk about this complicated case. Second, the dead woman is speedily identified by Lock as Angela Long, recently elected as an independent MP for Warwick and Leamington and someone who made no secret of her anti-AI stance. And thirdly? Stuffed in her suit pocket is a piece of paper containing a QR code, plus a long list of numbers that translate into a photo of Frank and Lock taken at the scene of their last big case – and the chilling message: “Catch me if you can”. As someone once said, the game is afoot and readers are once again treated to a story that combines themes such as grief, the march of progress and what it means to be human, alongside some lighter moments that help to keep those pages turning.
At its heart, this is a good ol’ police procedural, using the well-worn mismatched partners trope, but it’s to Jo Callaghan’s credit that she gives everything a polish and comes up with something unique and interesting. Don’t let the thought of AI put you off like it did me – because this is a book with something to say, and it’s well worth paying attention.
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Simon & Schuster
Print/Kindle/iBook
£9.99
CFL Rating: 5 Stars
