QUESTIONER

Two lawyers probe the secrets behind a major tech company’s flagship AI software in Posner’s thriller.

A woman is found dead in a New York City hotel bathroom at QuestCorp’s annual shareholders’ meeting. She’s revealed to be Connie Weathers, an employee of the company and a friend of Selena MacKenzie’s, a computer scientist and lawyer who happens to be the ex-lover of QuestCorp CEO Felix West. (Selena and former judge Martin Bavarius find Connie’s body.) When Bavarius is hired to defend an attorney who’s shot a rival lawyer—allegedly under the influence of QuestCorp’s AI-powered virtual reality gaming system—he and Selena team up to investigate the company and Felix West’s true agenda. They’re soon drawn into a mystery that will put their respective reputations (and lives) at risk as they seek to uncover the truth behind QuestCorp’s flagship AI software. The author has expertly woven together the genres of SF and the legal thriller to create an engrossing, thought-provoking narrative. The prose and dialogue feel natural, showing a deep understanding of genre conventions and the story’s concepts. By setting the book in the near future, Posner cannily allows readers to acclimate to a world in which AI has infiltrated nearly every facet of life, evincing a cleareyed understanding of the dangers of this fiction becoming reality. The plot is well paced and exciting. While chapters from the perspective of Q, a sentient QuestCorp AI, might compromise the mystery, the glimpses into the AI antagonist’s mind provide Frankenstein-like meditations on technological hubris. Transcripts at the end of each chapter from an actual exchange between the author and an AI chatbot (“There are several key concerns about how AI could impact humanity’s pursuit of objective truth”) offer a fascinating parallel between recent technological advancements and the plot of this book.

Humanity grapples with the consequences of AI in this stunning SF/legal thriller hybrid.