jbronderbookreviews

The Invisible Mind (Murder by Munchausen #3)

By M.T. Bass

Genre: Sci Fi, TechnoThriller, Police Procedural

A police procedural sci fi thriller ripped from future headlines!

Now unleashed, the “Baron” is resurrecting history’s notorious serial killers, giving them a second life in the bodies of hacked and reprogrammed Personal Assistant Androids, then turning them loose to terrorize the city. While detectives Jake and Maddie of the police department’s Artificial Crimes Unit scramble to stop the carnage with the Baron’s arrest, the cyberpunk head of the Counter IT Section, Q, struggles to de-encrypt his mad scheme to infect world data centers with a virus that represents a collective cyber unconsciousness of evil.

“…he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.”

                                                                          ~Adam Smith, 1776

“When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole.”

                                                                          ~Nikola Tesla, 1926

“…so, too, the psyche possesses a common substratum transcending all differences in culture and consciousness. I have called this substratum the collective unconscious.”

                                                                          ~Carl Jung, 1931

“It might not make sense, but the beloved Media tags it ‘Murder by Munchausen.’ For a price, there are hackers out there who will reprogram a synthoid to do your dirty work. The bad news: no fingerprints or DNA left at the crime scene. The good news—at least for us—is that they’re like missiles: once they hit their target, they’re usually as harmless as empty brass. The trick is to get them before they melt down their core OS data, so you can get the unit into forensics for analysis and, hopefully, an arrest.” [excerpt from Murder by Munchausen]

Artificial Intelligence? Fuhgeddaboudit!

Artificial Evil has a name…Munchausen.

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About the Author

M.T. Bass is a scribbler of fiction who holds fast to the notion that while victors may get to write history, novelists get to write/right reality. He lives, writes, flies and makes music in Mudcat Falls, USA.

Born in Athens, Ohio, M.T. Bass grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, majoring in English and Philosophy, then worked in the private sector (where they expect “results”) mainly in the Aerospace & Defense manufacturing market. During those years, Bass continued to write fiction. He is the author of seven novels: My Brother’s Keeper, Crossroads, In the Black, Somethin’ for Nothin’, Murder by Munchausen, The Darknet (Murder by Munchausen Mystery #2) and The Invisible Mind (Murder by Munchausen Mystery #3). His writing spans various genres, including Mystery, Adventure, Romance, Black Comedy and TechnoThrillers. A Commercial Pilot and Certified Flight Instructor, airplanes and pilots are featured in many of his stories. Bass currently lives on the shores of Lake Erie near Lorain, Ohio.

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My Review

5 Stars

The Baron is out there and the Geek Squad needs to step it up to catch him. Jake is in a coma, Maddie is still having issues after her attack, and now there is a hostage, Amy that seems to have some relation to The Baron’s past. But the most shocking is an android showing emotions when watching a video. The real question would be how the emotion android and The Baron related and if that will help stop him.

After the ending of The Darknet I couldn’t grab The Invisible Mind fast enough. Jake starts out in a coma but as he recovers Maddie brings him case information to review. Of course you have famous serial kills being copied but The Baron changes the outcome of Richard Speck’s killing and it makes you wonder why.

But the thing that really got me about this story was The Baron. We learn more about him and find out he is not just some typical madman hacker or thinks of himself as god. This adds another dimension to this story and just amps it up that much more.

I love this series and see that a fourth book is expect to come out. I couldn’t read The Invisible Mind fast enough to see how Maddie, Jake, and Q are going to stop the virus. Now I am very curious at what challenge they are going to face next. Make sure to get your hands on a copy of this series.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. I voluntarily chose to read and post an honest review.

Excerpt from The Invisible Mind

Chapter 2 – Richard Speck

It sat on a bench outside the dormitory of nursing students, waiting with its kind’s infinite patience. Originally acquired and programmed for landscaping at the Cleveland Clinic, the synthoid was one of a brigade of units which had been hacked and Munchausened, then returned to their menial daily services to mankind to await the Baron’s call.

There was no adrenalin surge behind the extremely life-like facade of humanity when that call came. Data packets, sent scatter-shot through the Atlas Grid, coalesced at the location outside the Cole Eye Institute, where it methodically trimmed and shaped the immaculate shrubbery around the building. To avoid Q’s metadata sniffing algorithms from detecting a download spike in the grid, the information came in digital sprinkles over the course of its human handler’s work shift, slowly building a malevolent intent to be executed that night. In the middle of the afternoon, it left the topiary unfinished to melt into the hospital shift change and disappeared.

Personality modules were a Gen-3 feature upgrade, which is why the earlier models were initially preferred. Swapping out a few IC chips and uploading hacked firmware was a relatively easy way to turn a quick buck with an automated contract killing. But evil innovates, too, and the same features that made synthoids even more human-like in their behavior also helped create robotic assassins which could better camouflage their malicious intents and evade the reach of the Artificial Crimes Unit by melting into and moving undetected through the humanity that surrounded them. For the Baron, it allowed for a greater measure of artistic expression in programming the synthoid’s behavior to not only recreate infamous crimes of the past, but to mimic the behavior of their perpetrators, which intensified the thrill of watching the video feed through the eyes of Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy or, this particular evening, Richard Speck. Jake wasn’t the only history buff and it amused Jamal that London police had photographed the eyes of Jack the Ripper’s victims, hoping to capture the last thing they ever saw: their killer’s face. If only Scotland Yard could have imagined the future.

The Gen-3 personality modules also supported the ANSI Adaptive Artificial Intelligence Protocol #9 to enhance the artificial human experience of real men and women who interacted with synthoids. The constant writing and rewriting of code in the personality/experience loop formed unique individual synthoid consciousnesses, which manufacturers uploaded to their servers for product improvement teams to study. In Munchausened units, that feed was hijacked and routed to another portal in the Darknet to build a collective id of evil.

Murder by Munchausen (Book 1)

A police procedural thriller ripped from future headlines…

Artificial Intelligence? Fuhgeddaboudit!

Artificial Evil has a name…Munchausen.

When androids are reprogrammed into hit men, detectives of the Artificial Crimes Unit repo the AnSub and track down the hackers. Partners Jake and EC’s case of an “extra-judicial” divorce settlement takes a nasty turn with DNA from a hundred-year-old murder in Boston and a signature that harkens back to the very first serial killer ever in London.

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My Review

4 Stars

Jake and EC are two detectives that work the Artificial Crimes Unit, the lowest division of the police that chases after androids that have been hacked, called Munchausened units. In this world androids are almost as realistic as humans and just like any machine can be reprogramed to do someone’s dirty work. But someone has picked a particular angle with his hack, one that mimics a murderer from one hundred years earlier. Then Jake’s girlfriend, Maddie has a murdered human that links to Jake’s own investigation. Jake has to balance his investigation and not step on Maddie’s toes. But Maddie is not any safer, she has caught the attention of the killer and is going to have to try to stay one step ahead of him.

This is a great, short read. There is the classic, noir detective that is stuck in a crummy department but you can tell that he really likes the job. I honestly never put much thought into using androids to kill people but this just made perfect sense. And you have a great mystery trying to figure out who the new, serial hacker/killer is.

This was a great story that blended a couple genera’s together beautifully. I easy fell into the story and didn’t want to quit until it abruptly ended. I’m really glad that I have the next book in the series. I can’t wait to see what Jake, EC, and Maddie get into next.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. I voluntarily chose to read and post an honest review.

The Dark Net (Book 2)

A police procedural thriller ripped from future headlines!

It was the case of a lifetime……but then it went sideways on her. The suspect Maddie put behind bars might have been crazy but it turns out he was innocent, and now she finds herself in the Artificial Crimes Unit hunting a serial killer from two hundred years ago and a madman breathing life back into him with modern technology. Worse yet, she’s partnered up with Jake, her former lover.

When androids are hacked and reprogrammed into hit men, Maddie and Jake investigate and track down the hackers. But now, an evil genius is using droids to recreate the infamous Jack the Ripper murders.

“It might not make sense, but the beloved Media tags it ‘Murder by Munchausen.’ For a price, there are hackers out there who will reprogram a synthoid to do your dirty work. The bad news: no fingerprints or DNA left at the crime scene. The good news—at least for us—is that they’re like missiles: once they hit their target, they’re usually as harmless as empty brass. The trick is to get them before they melt down their core OS data, so you can get the unit into forensics for analysis and, hopefully, an arrest.” [excerpt from Murder by Munchausen]

Artificial Intelligence? Fuhgeddaboudit!

Artificial Evil has a name…Munchausen.

 Amazon     Barnes and Noble     Goodreads

 

My Review

4 Stars

After arresting the wrong person, Maddie has been demoted to the Geek Squad with Jake and EC. Of course she is not happy about the demotion but she also has issues working with her former partner Jake. Although she doesn’t want to believe him, she finds herself taking a second look at her own crime scene.

The Baron is on the loose and still copying other serial killers that has gotten away. But it seems that something is wrong with what they know about hacking into the androids. They thought you had to be close to them for the hack but it seems The Baron has discovered a way to do this from a long distance away.

I really enjoyed Murder by Munchausen and the fresh look at murder. This story was not as wrapped in scifi but had more to the mystery of who The Baron was and if they could stop him before someone else died. Of course the ending caught me off guard but all the best thrillers have this.

I like where this story went from the first book and I’m really excited to see how the series is going to progress in The Invisible Mind. This is a great thriller/scifi story and one series that you won’t be disappointed in.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. I voluntarily chose to read and post an honest review.

I would like to thank Sage’s Blog Tours for the opportunity to read and share this series.