In the Blink of an Eye: A Novel
Aug 2024 · Sold by Random House
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About this ebook
SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER • Two detectives: one human, one AI. And a case that will test them both.
“Wildly original, heartfelt, funny, and properly thrilling, this is the kind of fresh and fearless debut I just adore.”—Chris Whitaker, author of All the Colors of the Dark, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick
Winner of the Crime Writers’ Association’s John Creasy New Blood Dagger Award and the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year
Kat Frank knows all about loss. A widowed single mother, Kat is a cop who trusts her intuition, honed through years of on-the-beat police work. Picked to lead a pilot program that has her paired with Lock, an AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity)—a hologram that is activated by a device on Kat’s wrist—Kat’s gut reactions about people and motives come up against Lock’s statistical calculations and data analysis that can be devised in seconds.
But as the two missing person’s cold cases they are reviewing suddenly become active, Lock is the only one who can help when the case begins to target Kat personally. AI versus human experience. Logic versus instinct. With lives on the line, can the pair work together to solve the mystery in time?
A dazzling debut from an exciting new voice, In the Blink of an Eye asks us what we think it means to be human.
NOMINATED: Capital Crime’s Overall Crime Book of the Year; Crimefest’s Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award
“Wildly original, heartfelt, funny, and properly thrilling, this is the kind of fresh and fearless debut I just adore.”—Chris Whitaker, author of All the Colors of the Dark, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick
Winner of the Crime Writers’ Association’s John Creasy New Blood Dagger Award and the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year
Kat Frank knows all about loss. A widowed single mother, Kat is a cop who trusts her intuition, honed through years of on-the-beat police work. Picked to lead a pilot program that has her paired with Lock, an AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity)—a hologram that is activated by a device on Kat’s wrist—Kat’s gut reactions about people and motives come up against Lock’s statistical calculations and data analysis that can be devised in seconds.
But as the two missing person’s cold cases they are reviewing suddenly become active, Lock is the only one who can help when the case begins to target Kat personally. AI versus human experience. Logic versus instinct. With lives on the line, can the pair work together to solve the mystery in time?
A dazzling debut from an exciting new voice, In the Blink of an Eye asks us what we think it means to be human.
NOMINATED: Capital Crime’s Overall Crime Book of the Year; Crimefest’s Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award
SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER • Two detectives: one human, one AI. And a case that will test them both.
“Wildly original, heartfelt, funny, and properly thrilling, this is the kind of fresh and fearless debut I just adore.”—Chris Whitaker, author of All the Colors of the Dark, a Read with Jenna Book C...
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Ratings and reviews
3 reviews
Veronica Hinojosa
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December 7, 2025
beautiful funny tense book. The AI component was so fresh...
About the author
Jo Callaghan works full time as a senior strategist, carrying out research into the future impact of AI and genomics on the workforce. She was a student of the Writers’ Academy Course at Penguin Random House and was longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Writing Competition and Bath Novel Competition. After losing her husband to cancer in 2019 when she was just forty-nine, Callaghan started writing In the Blink of an Eye, her debut crime novel, which explores learning to live with loss and what it means to be human. Jo Callaghan lives with her two children in the British Midlands.
Jo Callaghan works full time as a senior strategist, carrying out research into the future impact of AI and genomics on the workforce. She was a student of the Writers’ Academy Course at Penguin Random House and was longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Writing Competition and Bath Novel Competition. ...
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