Author Jo Callaghan talks to us about her debut crime novel In The Blink of An Eye and the inspiration behind creating an artificially intelligent detective to help solve cold cases.
Jo Callaghan is a British fiction author. In The Blink of An Eye is her crime debut and first UK published book. It is published by Simon & Schuster on 19 January 2023 and you can also find it on our catalogue.
I adored Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables, as she was so smart, yet couldn’t stop talking (I was always getting told off for talking too much) and of course, she wanted to be a writer. On TV, I loved Wonder Woman and The Bionic Woman – anything that had super strong women who saved the day!
I always wrote stories as a child and adolescent but once I left university, work and then family life took over, so I stopped writing. I always assumed I would return to writing ‘one day’, but that day kept drifting further and further away. On my 40th birthday, my husband bought me a laptop, and I started writing seriously again. But I massively underestimated how hard it would be! I think I thought that once I committed my bum to the seat and had my very own laptop, the words and success would quickly follow. Instead, it took me five novels and thirteen years to finally get published! I learned my craft by writing two Middle Grade and three YA novels during that time. In The Blink of An Eye is my first adult crime novel.
Although In The Blink of an Eye is fiction, I was really keen to make sure that all the science and technological aspects of the novel were plausible, if not probable, and so most of the AI Deep Learning capabilities that AIDE Lock possesses either already exist or are on the horizon. The one exception is its real-time conversational abilities, which most expert forecasts suggest are probably some way off, so I deliberately set the novel a few but unspecified years in the future.
I wanted to give Lock the ability to interact with the human team, partly to make the story more engaging, (which is why it manifests itself as a hologram) but also because as Professor Stuart Russell spoke about in the 2021 Reith Lectures, the real question is not whether AI will be able to perform X or Y task, but what happens when it can: what happens when a machine capable of Deep Learning meets and interacts with the real world? Many scientists such as Professor Giovanni Montana, a Turing Fellow at Warwick University were very generous with their time, because they know at some point it is likely that this will become possible, so we need a wider public debate about the consequences now, before it happens.
Stories are a powerful way to engage people in these vital conversations, so although I have (hopefully) written In the Blink of an Eye in an entertaining and sometimes humorous way, I also explore questions of how the police make decisions, the use (and abuse) of data, and the line between ‘gut instinct’ and prejudice.
Thank you! By 2017 I’d decided to move away from YA and to try my hand at writing an adult crime novel involving a middle-aged female detective, as that was what I loved to read, but I couldn’t think of anything original that excited me. In my day job, I was working on a project about the impact of AI and technology on the future workforce, so I guess those thoughts were whirring away in the background. Then one night I was reading Origin by Dan Brown, where the protagonist has access to an AI adviser that fits in his ear. And I just thought, wow, wouldn’t it be great if detectives could use AI to help solve crimes?
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.
A widowed single mother, DCS Kat Frank is a cop who trusts her instincts. When she’s picked to lead a pilot programme that has her paired with AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity) Lock, Kat's instincts come up against Lock's logic. But when the two missing person's cold cases they are reviewing suddenly become active, Lock is the only one who can help Kat when the case gets personal. It’s about AI versus human experience. Logic versus instinct. And with lives on the line can the pair work together before someone else becomes another statistic?
Thank you, yes, I LOVED writing Lock. As well as carrying out research into the current and future possibilities of AI, I spent a lot of time rewatching classic films and programmes like Star Trek and Terminator – anything where there is an ‘other’ character like Spock or Arnie who does not understand or follow the usual norms of human interaction and decision making processes. The misunderstandings can be really funny, but also really profound. In Terminator 2, when John tells Arnie that he can’t go around killing people, like a child, Arnie keeps on asking why? John struggles to answer the question, before eventually spluttering, ‘because…because… you just can’t!’ So although many of the exchanges are (hopefully) humorous, there is a deeper point I am trying to make about the human members of the police team having to explain why they do the things that they do. I try and leave it to the reader to decide who, if anyone, is right!
Yes, I am working on book 2 as In the Blink of an Eye is the first in a series. This gives me a great opportunity to develop the character of Lock more, and to see just how much it is capable of learning…
So much! I have always read a lot from many different genres but now I am lucky enough to be sent proofs of books that will come out in 2023, so I have even more to read. I am really looking forward to reading The Beach Party by Nikki Smith, which as a thriller set in Mallorca in the 1980’s will be the perfect antidote for this cold weather, as will Midnight at Malabar House, set in post-partition India by Vaseem Khan. I am looking forward to the next book by TM Logan (The Mother) and over Christmas I am hoping to have more time to read Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson, who I adore.
Aaargh I really can’t do ‘favourite’ books or anything creative as I really believe there are different films/books for different people at different times. However, I am writing this in December, so if your readers are looking for something festive, I HIGHLY recommend Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan – set in 1985 Ireland in the days before Christmas, it is 110 pages of perfection. A lesser known but favourite Christmas film I always bang on about is The Bishop’s Wife with Cary Grant, David Niven and Loretta Young. And I feel uncomfortable about prioritising art or music as it is so very personal and emotional – just make time to enjoy whatever moves you if you have the chance to take some time off during the festive/holiday season.
Well, I am a debut author, so I imagine no one knows anything about me! Apart from the book, I am famous amongst my 22yo son’s friends for apparently making ‘the best ever’ cheese on toast…
