REVIEWS

Merging Technology with the Murder Mystery Genre

My girlhood heroine was Nancy Drew. How I longed to ride beside her in her coupe and investigate all those mysteries. Now, I have discovered Turing Hopper, a 21st century protagonist detective who can process a billion pieces of information per second! Turing Hopper is an evolving mainframe computer (referred to by author Donna Andrews as artificial intelligence or AI). Turing has been compared with Agatha Christie's Ms. Marple.

I have read two of the four Turing Hopper books, Delete All Suspects and Access Denied. In both books, Turing enlists the help of her friends Maude and Tim. I admire Maude immensely because she diligently assists Tim and Turing in their investigations. Tim is an apprentice "gumshoe" who has finished his detective courses but is still learning on the job. They are both loyal to Turing. They will not reveal the secret that Turing is an AI.

Donna Andrews books are family friendly. Teenagers will especially enjoy this mix of sci fi and mystery.

Join me for a chat with Donna Andrews.

SP: I know the name Turing Hopper is derived from the names of the people who were mother and father to the birth of the computer. How did the idea of Turing Hopper occur to you? Why a female AI?

DA: Yes, Turing is named after Alan Turing, the British cryptographer and AI theorist, and Admiral Grace Hopper, who is often credited for naming the computer bug. I'm not sure how I came up with the idea of Turing the AI. I'd been looking around for a way to use my interest in computers in a mystery, but the idea of Turing sprang full-blown into my head in response to a contest run at the Malice Domestic mystery convention. The contest challenged entrants to describe the most unusual series character we could think of--I immediately came up with Turing. I tried for a bit writing the book from a male AI point of view, but he began coming across rather stiff and stilted--in fact, rather like poor KingFischer, the chess AIP, who makes a great sidekick, but would be a lousy protagonist. The minute I decided to make Turing nominally female, she came alive for me.

SP: How have your readers responded to Turing?

DA: Many people who were reading my original series, with ornamental blacksmith Meg Langslow, also seem to have liked the Turing series. A lot of people prefer one series to the other, and I also get the occasional letter or email from someone who hates one series and loves the other. What I really enjoy is hearing from someone who didn't think he or she would find a book about a computer interesting, but tried it anyway, because they liked my other work, and liked this, too. After all, I don't really see it as being about a computer. It's about a person who happens to occupy another kind of body.

SP: I like Turing's friends. Do you know someone like Maude? Is she a composite of several people? Will Turing and Maude ever understand each other?

DA: I seldom base fictional characters directly on real people—too dangerous! But I know a number of people who, like Maude, had the experience of changing direction in the middle of their lives and following another path, as Maude is doing with her newfound computer skills and her alliance with Turing. Since I wasn't published till I was over forty, you could say I did that myself. I think Maude and Turing understand each other a great deal better than many people do, but I hope they never completely understand each other. It's a lot more interesting when, in addition to conflict with the villain, there's also the possibility of a conflict between two of the good guys.

SP: How did Tim become a gumshoe?

DA: In You've Got Murder, Tim is both a fan of the traditional PI novels of Hammett and Chandler and a wannabe PI. So when I was wrapping up the book, the last scene with Tim showed him sitting in his PI office, welcoming his first customer. But when I began to write Click Here for Murder, I realized that Tim was now a full-fledged PI, and I knew nothing about how he would have to operate. So I went out myself and took the classes required in Virginia to become a PI. I took my course at Central Training Academy in Chantilly, and whenever one of the instructors would say something like, "I don't ever want to hear that any of you are stupid enough to do something like this when you go out and become working PIs!"-I took notes. I figured as a beginning PI, Tim would probably make a few silly mistakes. In fact, the whole plot of Click Here for Murder arises out of one of Tim's mistakes: he has failed to do a good background check on an employee Turing is hiring. And in Access Denied, he makes another typical beginner's mistake—he goes out on surveillance alone and falls asleep--and while he's asleep, a murder occurs at the house he was supposed to be watching.

SP: Will the new detective from Miami become a permanent character?

DA: Claudia Diaz, the Cuban-American woman PI, has become a recurring character--in Access Denied, the third Turing book, Turing, Maude, and Tim recruit her to help with the case, and by the end of that book she has decided to relocate to the D.C. area to go into partnership with Tim. By the end of the fourth book, Delete All Suspects, she's a full player--though they still haven't told her the full truth about Turing.

SP: Do you plan to increase the role of the AI chess player?

DA: I'm not sure if KingFischer's role will increase, but he's definitely not going away--like Turing, he's maturing--perhaps a little more slowly than Turing--and I find their progress fascinating. And besides, KingFischer's literalness provides a lot of the comic relief in the books.

SP: Would you categorize this series as mystery or science fiction? Is it a hybrid?

DA: I'd call it a mystery with one science fiction element--the sentient AIP. With the exception of Turing, all the technology I use is very much present day, not futuristic.

In fact, when I begin looking for a plot for a Turing book, I try to find a crime that has tendrils in both the real world and cyberspace. If it was a crime with no computer angle, her human allies wouldn't need Turing to solve it, any more than Turing would need them to solve a crime that existed completely in cyberspace. I think the Turing books work better if solving the crime requires both Turing's specialized knowledge of technology and Maude's and Tim's knowledge of real life.

And whenever possible, I try to use some aspect of technology that affects everyday people, not just tech-savvy people--such as identity theft and credit card fraud in Access Denied, or spam and phishing in Delete All Suspect. Maybe talking about the subjects will help some people become savvy enough to avoid being victimized--and if not, at least they can enjoy seeing Turing bring the miscreants to justice.

SP: Have you had input from computer people? What do they think of Turing Hopper?

DA: I've heard from a great many computer people who like the series. Most of them also seem to find it reasonably accurate--not, I hasten to explain, because I'm an expert in all things cybernetic, but because I have at least one of my techie friends read each manuscript with instructions to flag anything that isn't accurate.

It's remarkable how many women mystery readers have told me that they gave the Turing books to their husbands or boyfriends who only read science fiction. Sometimes this opens a door to the men reading other mystery books and sometimes I remain the only mystery writer they will read, but still--it's great to know I'm expanding my audience this way.

SP: These books are perfect for teens. Do you have any teen fans?

DA: Yes, both with the Turing series and my Meg series. I like having teen readers; I like to think I'd have enjoyed reading them when I was a teen.

SP: Is there an evil side to Turing Hopper?

DA: I don't think there's an evil side, but like most people, she's a mixture of strengths and weaknesses. The phrase "only human" comes to mind, even though it's obviously not technically accurate. By the time the first book begins, Turing is mature enough to understand that just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean it's right. And yet, to protect herself or her friends, she often has to take actions that aren't strictly legal. She has become increasingly aware that what she is doing amounts to vigilantism, and has begun to worry that there may not be as much difference as she'd like between what she does and what the bad guys do. And she readily admits that she is still learning her way around the human world--the only thing more confusing than human laws is the humans' sense of morality. So while Turing isn't evil, she's become very conscious of the possibility that she could cause evil without even intending to. I suspect she will eventually regret ever having decided to install that conscience program.

SP: Have you thought of making the series into a video game?

DA: Well, not being a game programmer, I haven't. But I did get some friends to help me create a cool little site for Beyond Paranoia, the (fictitious) role-playing game that appears in Click Here for Murder.

http://www.donnaandrews.com/beyondparanoia/

website: http://donnaandrews.com

blog: http://donnaandrews.typepad.com/donna_andrews

mailing list: http://donnaandrews.com/mailinglist.shtml

Sandra Pianin is a freelance writer and reviewer who lives in New York City. She is a frequent contributor to ladies-room.net and a new book reviewer for newsblaze.com.