“In the UK, someone is reported missing every 90 seconds.
Just gone. Vanished. In the blink of an eye.

DCS Kat Frank knows all about loss. A widowed single mother, Kat is a cop who trusts her instincts. 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.

AI versus human experience.
Logic versus instinct.
With lives on the line can the pair work together before someone else becomes another statistic?
In the Blink of an Eye is a dazzling debut from an exciting new voice and asks us what we think it means to be human.”

Hello and welcome to damppebbles. Today I am delighted to share my review of In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan. In the Blink of an Eye was published by Simon & Schuster on 4th January 2024 and is available in hardcover, paperback, audio and digital formats.

In the Blink of an Eye is HUGE. It’s won awards, it was absolutely everywhere when it was first published in hardcover and then again when it was published in paperback. It’s my go-to genre and until the summer, I hadn’t read it. I felt a little left out! There have since been two sequels published (with a third on the way!) and again, the love for them is immense. So I decided to change the fact that I hadn’t read book one – In the Blink of an Eye – when I was selecting my #20BooksofSummer2025 reading list.

In the Blink of an Eye is a little bit different to most of the other police procedurals out there. Detective Chief Superintendent Kat Frank has recently returned to work, but her bosses are unable to find a role suitable for someone with her experience and skill set. The only option is to take the lead on the AIDE trial. In order to cut skyrocketing costs, the Home Secretary wants to replace skilled human police officers with AI versions. No wage packet, no sick pay, no holiday pay, no pension, no need for an HR Department. Imagine the savings! DCS Frank is reluctant to participate in such a ludicrous scheme, but she needs to return to work. She has to keep busy. So Frank’s team are joined by an AI detective, AIDE Lock. Tasked with looking at a number of cold cases, the fledgling team don’t get off to the best start. The humans can’t fathom how their new AI counterpart processes data and makes decisions, and Lock can’t understand emotion or how they can make decisions based purely on someone’s gut feeling. It’s not a good start! However, when a connection is made between two of the cold cases, it takes the investigation in a whole new direction. Can the very different parts of the team manage to finally work together before someone loses their life…?

In the Blink of an Eye is an engaging, pacy police procedural with a great twist. The characters are strong and well-written. I didn’t particularly warm to DCS Frank, but that’s fairly normal for me. I don’t believe characters have to be likeable for the story to be good, or to enhance my reading experience. I do get the feeling the character may grow on me as I progress through the series. The other members of the team (I’ll talk about AIDE Lock in a bit) are all interesting and help move the story on. DI Rayan Hassan really shakes things up by challenging Frank’s authority, which I rather enjoyed! The relationships between the different team members were intriguing, and the dynamic was compelling. I would happily spend more time with them in future books. AIDE Lock is something else altogether! Wow, the amount of thought, plotting and planning that went into creating the character was quite astounding. Hats off to Jo Callaghan. I mean, where do you start with something like that? Something none of us has experienced before. How would it see its police colleagues? What would it do in certain situations? Is it analysing you and those you work with as much as it’s analysing the world around it? It was very believable. There was no doubt in my mind that AIDE Lock was real. As much as a holographic police officer who ‘lives’ in a bracelet most of the time can be real!

Would I recommend this book? I would, yes. In the Blink of an Eye is a fascinating police procedural with interesting characters who I look forward to watching grow in future books. The mystery aspect of the novel was engaging and entertaining, with the denouement being really rather nerve-racking. I enjoyed how AIDE Lock had the statistics ready to go at a moment’s notice. And how Lock found its human colleagues quite confusing at times, going against the expected norm. Not quite being able to compute their reasoning and experience. All in all, great pace, an intriguing storyline, and multi-layered, well-written characters. If you’re looking for something a bit different, this is it! Is this the future? Bloody scary if it is! I can’t wait to read the next three  books in the series (two already available with the third due out in May 2026). Recommended.

In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan was published in the UK by Simon & Schuster on 4th January 2024 and is available in hardcover, paperback, audio and digital formats (please note, the following links are affiliate links which means I receive a small percentage of the purchase price at no extra cost to you): | amazon.co.uk | Waterstones | bookshop.org | Goodreads | damppebbles bookshop.org shop | damppebbles amazon.co.uk shop | damppebbles amazon.com shop |

Jo Callaghan works full time as a senior strategist, carrying out research into the future impact of AI and genomics on the workforce. She was a student of the Writers’ Academy Course (Penguin Random House) and was longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Writing Competition and Bath Novel Competition. After losing her husband to cancer in 2019 when she was just forty-nine, she started writing In the Blink of an Eye, her debut crime novel, which explores learning to live with loss and what it means to be human. She lives with her two children in the Midlands, where she spends far too much time tweeting as @JoCallaghanKat and is currently working on further novels in the series.