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

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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 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

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 A standout debut with a unique and thrilling take on the detective novel. Engaging, exciting and superbly readable. I loved it' SARAH HILARY 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.

The revelation of the full villainy involved in the two men’s disappearance is intriguing, but it is Kat – her personality, her relationship with her young son and her experience of loss – that really lifts this novel’

Jo Callaghan makes her entry into the crowded police procedural genre with a fresh take on the buddy-buddy cop trope . . . Provocative and compelling Vaseem KhanThe winners will be selected at random from all valid entries for this competition received before the Closing Date.