Artificial Intelligencia

In this intelligent and alarmingly possible thriller from bestseller Clarke (Breakpoint), Det. Insp. Wei Bao, an honest Chinese policeman assigned to the small harbor town of Dalian, is stunned when his superior, Chief Insp. Wang Niu, orders Wei to Beijing to meet with the Chinese president’s chief of staff, Huang Qiang. He’s even more shocked when Huang taps him, as part of the latest crackdown on corruption, to probe the rising numbers of people being paid for no-show jobs by large corporations. He’s given a temporary promotion and asked to use his knowledge of artificial intelligence to determine the extent of the payroll fraud and to stop it. That mission sends him to North America, where Wei learns the problem isn’t limited to his home country and may be tied to the murder of his former professor, Ramesh Pandry, a pioneer in quantum computing. The threat proves much more severe than either Wei or Huang could have anticipated. Former U.S. counterterrorism official Clarke’s expertise in cybercrime and AI lend the disturbing plot plausibility. Mark Alpert fans will be engrossed. (Apr.)