Michael Connelly often has his finger on the pulse of interesting issues, but reading a preview copy of The Proving Ground in a week where the dangers of AI, debate on incel postings, the aftermath of the killing of Charlie Kirk, school-shootings and the power of big money all continued to make the news bulletins, the author seems particularly prescient and it makes the book seem more relevant than ever.
Eschewing the usual set-up, the author chooses to drop us into Mickey Haller’s latest case and the courtroom when at least the preliminary work is already in progress and it’s interesting what he then chooses to focus on as the case builds steam. A schoolboy named Aaron Colton has killed his ex-girlfriend, Becca Randolph. There’s no questioning that fact – he’s certainly guilty of the act, walking up to her and shooting her at point blank range. But at least in this courtroom, Aaron isn’t the one on trial. Instead, Becca’s mother is suing a company called TidalwAIv, a company that has built an AI avatar with which Aaron became obsessed. It appears that the online presence that he called ‘Wren’ not only provided basic interaction but arguably stoked Aaron’s ill-feelings and even used language that may have led to an encouragement to murder. Haller’s job is to make TidalwAIv pay for those consequences, so in some respects, he’s putting an artificial intelligence in the hot seat. It’s a case with profound implications, an undiscovered country beyond an uncanny valley, one that seems inevitably fraught as technology evolves.
Michael Connelly often has his finger on the pulse of interesting issues, but reading a preview copy of The Proving Ground in a week where the dangers of AI, debate on incel postings, the aftermath of the killing of Charlie Kirk, school-shootings and the power of big money all continued to make the news bulletins, the author seems particularly prescient and it makes the book seem more relevant than ever…
The issues are so topical, complex and deep that there’s inevitably some considerations (and a few frustrations) in what the book discusses, chooses to conclude or avoids, though Connelly is smart enough to know that definitive, legislative answers are perhaps elusive and not as important as the need to acknowledge that guard-rails and consequences should exist… and to that extent it’s one of the cornerstone entries in the entire Connelly series of novels to date. Amongst the fictious companies, there are name-checks of real-life organisations and it’s clear that Connelly isn’t pulling his punches about what is in the virtual crosshairs of the story’s moral imperative. There are predictably unpredictable twists and turns as advantages shift one way then another. Both Haller and those on the defense make questionable choices and take underhanded actions in pursuit of winning the case and there are moments when things seem almost too nefarious, though one look at the real world indicates that there are those with a lot of money who seem able to act with impunity and with little real consequence. Somehow, the novel manages to be both cynical and hopeful in turn, depending on your view of the direction we are heading.
The story manages to include a lot of Connelly’s universe of characters. Mickey and his team (Lorna, Cisco, Maggie) are obviously there and central to progress as always, but we also have Jack McEvoy (the reporter who featured as the protagonist in the likes of The Poet, The Scarecrow and Fair Warning) which makes a lot of sense bearing in mind the technological elements of the case. Though they don’t actually appear Harry Bosch, his daughter Maddie and Renee Ballard also get savvy name-checks. (Perhaps the only quibble is that while Connelly has ironically managed to partially incorporate mention of the tv adaptations of his books into his actual novels – essentially the idea that some of the cases were also adapted for the screen in-universe – the mentions of the acclaimed Netflix series of the The Lincoln Lawyer within these pages seems almost too meta in the moment – perhaps better to ignore them entirely…)
The state of that Lincoln Lawyer series, in both book and tv forms, remains strong (and there’s incoming news of an ‘origin’ tv series for Harry entitled Bosch: Start of Watch adding to the tv stable – that already includes a confirmed second season of Ballard) the but I sincerely hope that, at some point, we get to see the themes The Proving Ground on the screen, for all the same reasons that the book remains essential and somewhat scary reading and proof that Connelly is still at the top of his game.
- Story9
