Review by Booklist Review
Abrams's Avery Keene, the brilliant lawyer-turned-investigator with ice-pick-sharp analytical skills, returns, following Rogue Justice (2022), to face a complicated new challenge: nefarious dealings at a high-tech healthcare firm. Rafe Diaz, tech wizard and hunky former soldier, is developing a high-level "artificial generative intelligence" to provide comprehensive medical care for struggling veterans. A freak accident has just killed one of his top engineers days before the company is about to go public. Is a disgruntled employee or competitor trying to scuttle the deal? Or is something more disturbing going on? It's up to Avery and her crack team--doctor and BFF Ling, lawyer and financial analyst Noah, and boyfriend and special ops security expert Jared--to find out. As the body count rises and the suspect list balloons, Avery can't help but wonder just how intelligent and devious this AI system might be and how far Diaz and company will go to protect their investment. Abrams enriches this fast-paced thriller with her sense of social justice: most of the main characters are people of color motivated less by greed than by their experiences with institutional racism. The very real concerns with veteran health, privacy, and the chilling prospect of AI run amok will engage readers' brains and souls.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Fans of Abrams' best-selling series will not be denied, and the AI and healthcare themes will create even more interest.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Onetime newsmaking Supreme Court clerk Avery Keene, now a corporate internal investigator at a private firm, probes a mysterious death at a giant tech company that promises to revolutionize patient care. On the verge of going public, Camasca Enterprises says it will offer vastly improved treatment through its super-sophisticated AI technology, with an emphasis on eliminating bias toward veterans and other traditionally neglected groups. Excited to be investigating a crime after months of boring tasks, "adrenaline junkie" Keene quickly detects that something is amiss at the company. Far from embodying "the soul of Hippocrates," the voice of its neural network, Milo, coldly resists following instructions and reveals its capability of using private information it has surveilled without permission. When two Vietnam veterans are stricken with carbon monoxide poisoning--supposedly caused by a faulty ventilation system--and other patients develop unusual symptoms, the investigation shifts into a higher gear. So does the deep institutional coverup that may or may not involve the CEO and founder of the firm, Rafe Diaz, "the industry's Leonardo da Vinci," whose charisma and good looks have a way of softening Avery's judgments. For all its "dead bodies, missing people, [and] blackmailed police," the novel is surprisingly light on suspense. Aside from an undercooked scene in which the network takes control of her car, Avery is never threatened. And though she quizzes Milo on moral relativism--"I have been quite intrigued by Immanuel Kant and his approach to deontology," he says--this slow-starting book is far more involved with technical explanations than AI-instituted corrections to "the entire sweep of human civilization." Abrams' infelicities with language ("A knot she hadn't noticed in her gut unraveled") further weaken the third entry in the Georgia politician's series, followingRogue Justice (2023). Abrams' AI is no HAL. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
