Donna Andrews Delete All Suspects

Delete All Suspects

Donna Andrews

Berkley, Nov 2005, $23.00, 256 pp.

ISBN 0425205609x

When the computer programmers made artificial intelligence personalities (AIP), nobody expected one of them, Turing Hoppper, to gain sentience or to make friends with humans. Her biggest concern of the moment is finding her clone T-2 stolen by Nestor Garcia, a criminal who wants to use her intelligence in planning his career. Turing's friend private investigator Tim Pinesoki is hired by Mrs Stallman to investigate her grandson's business. He was the victim of a hit and run driver; a witness thinks the driver was trying to murder Edward.

Mrs. Stallman thinks that the attempted murder was linked to his web hosting business and to the friends her grandson let use free space on his server for their website. To get her mind off her problems, Turing decides to help Tim as does her friend Maude Graham who is the front person for Turing's businesses. It takes them a long time to get inside because they don't have the user name or password but when they do get in, they realize someone is running illegal porn sites and someone else is using phiset spams to collect credit card and banking information. When the neighbor who saw the hit and run is murdered, Turing and company realize they are dealing will a very dangerous individual who will not hesitate to kill anyone who gets too close to uncovering the truth.

For an AIP, Turing Hopper has more personality then most humans do and her quest to understand carbon based entities is something a sentient AI would do. Luckily, she is a decent silicon based entity who only bends the law to prevent her sentience from being discovered. The mystery is constructed with a variety of suspects; many of whom committed criminal acts but only one went so far as murder. Donna Andrews has written another great amateur sleuth who-done-it.

Harriet Klausner