Tag Archives: John Edward Mullen

Mystery by Mainframe

Posted on by April 3, 2018
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Artificial Intelligence and Murder

Don­na Andrews is best known for her mys­ter­ies with birds. But, did you know she has an excel­lent series of four books with the sleuth Tur­ing Hop­per, AIP (that’s Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence Per­son­al­i­ty). Yep, she’s a main­frame com­put­er who became sen­tient. When she’s faced with mur­der, she engages her “Miss Marple” brain to solve the mys­tery. And, through­out the four books she solves more mys­tery, but digs her­self deep­er into a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion. She’d cloned her­self, to be in two places at once, but what hap­pened to the clone? Unfor­tu­nate­ly, that mys­tery has nev­er been solved. Evi­dent­ly, not enough read­ers were as delight­ed as I was. With tra­di­tion­al pub­lish­ing, the pub­lish­er has the final say, so the series wasn’t con­tin­ued. The first in the series, Click Here for Mur­der, won the Agatha and Antho­ny Awards. (I still have my four paper­backs, await­ing for a sequel.) In the mean­time, read Donna’s oth­er mys­ter­ies. Vis­it the Don­na Andrews page here.

Dig­i­tal Dick is not a series, but it is anoth­er mys­tery with a main­frame heart and human emo­tions. (John Edward Mullen has writ­ten two books so far.) Dig­i­tal Dick learns how to solve mys­ter­ies while wish­ing he had hands so he could plug in his own elec­tric­i­ty. He runs rings around the bad guys, as well as the good guys who just don’t under­stand him. Oh, yes, he has a human sis­ter as well. Vis­it the John Edward Mullen page here.

I’m on the look­out for sim­i­lar books. Do you know of any such books? I’d love to hear about them. (I’m not talk­ing mil­i­tary intel­li­gence here, real­ly, although I might be con­vinced.)

 

Five Stars for Digital Dick

Posted on by September 20, 2015
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I like mys­tery: cozy, noir, his­toric, roman­tic, sus­pense, and espe­cial­ly off-beat mys­tery. Dig­i­tal Dick def­i­nite­ly qual­i­fies on that last one.

9-21 Digital Dick coverI absolute­ly love this book about a sen­tient com­put­er. That’s a com­put­er who learns to solve crimes while wish­ing he had hands so he could plug into the elec­tric­i­ty him­self. He learns as he goes along, but he’s quite knowl­edge­able for a sev­en-year old. Still, his goofs on prop­er behav­ior are fun­ny (or exas­per­at­ing to his human sis­ter), while, of course, he men­tal­ly runs rings around the bad guys. Even the guys who aren’t bad, just don’t believe in Dig­i­tal Dick.

The pub­lish­ers says, “As a com­put­er with a human per­son­al­i­ty, Dick Young strug­gles to under­stand peo­ple. Some would deny per­son­hood to Dick, oth­ers who fear him would take him apart chip by chip.

“After he wit­ness­es a bloody mur­der, Dick offers to assist the San Diego Police Depart­ment catch the killer. But when the search for the mur­der­er turns up a sec­ond body, Dick’s Sat­is­fac­tion Index plum­mets. He breaks com­pa­ny with the police and begins inves­ti­gat­ing the case on his own. As he fol­lows the clues, Dick learns more and more about humans: how they live, how they love and how they mur­der. He will need that knowl­edge to over­come the killer who threat­ens to destroy Dick and every­one that Dick holds dear.”

The July 2015 Mid­west Book Review, puts it this way: “In addi­tion to tak­ing the prize for orig­i­nal­i­ty, this book is a great piece of sto­ry-telling and a good read. I high­ly rec­om­mend it.”

And I add, if you like your mys­tery with a great sense of humor while keep­ing up the sus­pense, this is the read for you.