A topical and intriguing plot hamstrung by, among other things, the dialogue between the two main characters. FBI Special Agents Jude Mackenzie and Victoria Tennant have a mystery on their hands when various people are killed by the machines in their smart homes. How is it happening, who is going it? More importantly, why? And does the reader care? This last is critical. You like me might figure things out before the SAs do. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. Graham has written many many novels- this is not one of her best.

Couldn’t finish this one, the premise was fun, who wouldn’t love the idea of a murdering AI. But this one was just SO repetitive and slow. Not my favorite of hers.

I was both intrigued and apprehensive to read The Murder Machine after reading the description given today's society -- namely the obsession with AI and "smart" homes. Once I snagged an ARC, I dove right in and did not come up for air until I was done. Graham somehow created a fantastical yet plausible plot (a la 1984) that kept me hooked until the very end. A great summer read for 2025, preferably outdoors!

I only made it about half way through and just couldn’t finish it. It started off pretty well and sounded intriguing. But pretty quickly, it got a little monotonous and slow and just lost my attention.

Unfortunately I had to DNF this book pretty early on. I found the plot really hard to follow, and like many other reviewers noted, the dialogue clunky and repetitive. I was excited about this book and it sounded like a unique concept - a technology thriller with a murderous AI house, but just didn't hit the mark for me.

Heather Graham has written many, many books, but somehow this is only the second one I've read by her. I was glad to pick this one up - it has been a long time since I read the other.

Description:
This state-of-the-art smart home has a next-generation entertainment system, an ultramodern kitchen where every appliance is online and even a personal AI to control it all. Standing above its owner's lifeless body, FBI agent Jude Mackenzie is faced with the daunting task of discovering how the woman was killed by her own home. How do you catch a murderer that doesn't leave any fingerprints?

Enter Special Agent Victoria Tennant, whose familiarity with cybercrime reveals the stark a machine can only do what it's been directed to. As the number of grisly "accidents" begins to rise, the pair must race to uncover the perpetrator even as they find themselves caught in their digital crosshairs! There's nowhere to hide when danger may be as close as the very phones in their pockets.

My Thoughts:
Being a computer person, I was aware of how technology can be hacked and manipulated to accomplish many things. However, this book really shows extremely malicious manipulation of technology to kill. It was fascinating and scary to think about machines being manipulated to murder. This book really makes you think. Not only that, the story was totally interesting and kept my attention throughout. I liked how FBI Agent Jude Mackenzie and Special Agent Victoria Tennant worked together and used their collective skills to move the investigation forward. Anyone who likes a good mystery or is a computer nerd would enjoy this book.

Thanks to Harlequin Trade Publishing | MIRA through Netgalley for an advance copy.

This was my first book by this author, although I had heard of their books before. I actually quit reading and went to look at other reviews because I was questioning if it was just me. It apparently isn’t . The writing felt very clunky. Words and thoughts repeated multiple times. Throw in a quickly formed weird working/older man relationship and it fell flat for me.
Perhaps I will try another one of this authors books in the future and enjoy them a bit more.
I received an ARC of this title, all opinions are my own.

I want to preface this review by stating that I need not finish this book. I believe that life is too short, and there are too many great books out there to waste my time reading something I don’t enjoy. Firstly, the beginning of the book was confusing. We’re supposed to believe that a 33-year-old detective has never worked with a Federal agent AND that he’s not familiar with Smart devices? The language was clunky and felt like it had been written by a teenager. I traditionally wait until I’m 25% in until I give up on a book, but this one was really bad so I chose to read other NG reviews and it seems I was not the only one that had this problem. This was my first Heather Graham book, though I do have one of her trilogies on my shelf at home to read. This one made me disappointed because I assumed such a widely published author would be a better writer, but from the other reviews, it does seem this is not her typical book. I think I’ll still try the trilogy on my shelf, but this one was a DNF for me.

As I said on ,on review of the audiobook for this as soon I saw this I was so excited because I absolutely love Heather Graham and her books and the concept of this story was so much different then her other books ,and that completely surprised me with how different it was. But unlike the audiobook which I give a 3 star rating, this one I'm giving a four because in my opinion this is the way to read it, it was so much more enjoyable even though I was going through a really bad headache and was listening to the audiobook. I don't know how to explain it but just reading seem to bring the story more to life then the audiobook did.

As a major fan of Heather Graham's Krewe of Hunters books, I was excited to read something different from her. I will admit I had my reservations about the topic. What do you do when technology/AI start to commit crimes? I was worried the storyline wouldn't be realistic. Thankfully I did not need to worry. Heather did a great job writing the plot as something that could actually happen, It was an easy read that kept me guessing. I liked the main characters, how their partnership grew, the communication between them and how things ended in the end. If you're looking for an entertaining mystery that will have you thinking "what if this really happened" then I would recommend

This book brought up one of my biggest fears with AI. The fact that everything in the home was controlled by AI made it so crazy to me. When it comes to technology, I’ve kept in mind there is the possibility that it could be hacked. When this read started it was pretty convincing that I could have just been an accident. I really enjoyed the direction of this story. I think my only complaint was some of the language while reading, nothing too major but I did have to stop and reread at time.

DNF @50%

The writing in this felt very repetitive while also sounding like a cheesy after school special. The “old man doesn’t understand AI” gimmick was also annoying since Jude was only 33. Speaking of Jude, his internal monologue about Vicky and any other woman was gross. Jude and Vicky have only known each a handful of days and he’s already hitting on her while she falls all over herself to impress him. No thanks.

Thanks Netgalley, MIRA and Harlequin audio for providing this ARC to me!

*2.5 Stars*

I REALLY REALLY WANTED THIS BOOK TO BE GOOD but it was just not good.

The Murder Machine is about two detectives on a case trying to figure out who or what killed a women working as a receptionist at a Top Criminal Law firm, a Superior Court Judge, and another character I can't remember because I was so bored. They both feel like this one guy is behind it but when they find out who is doing it they are using there bare hands to do it. With the help of AI; the detectives are trying to uncover who is smart enough to pull off all these killings and not leave a trace behind.

The Murder Machine could have been so good if they would have had layers to the victims who were killed by AI. Like this book could have been a banger if done right. I feel like if this book was a movie, with more elements to it like at least giving us the POV of one of the victims, then it could have bumped up from a 2.5 to a 3.5 possibly.

The reveal was not something I was extremely gasped over at all. I really didn't care for the characters or who killed the victims because it felt like a drag sadly.

Another book I requested based on the cover that was a flop . . . .

While I received the e-book version of this book, I also like a good audiobook and was excited to receive a copy of it as well. Great story both ways.

I couldn't finish the book. I guess I didn't like the AI aspect and there was a lot of overtalking conversation.

I was excited to read this ARC and it started beautifully with an interesting plot line. But it quickly fell apart for me. It honestly felt like it wasn't written by Heather Graham. I've read several books by the author and loved them all but this one just didn't hold up. It was very disappointing. I didn't finish it because it was all over the place with amateur mistakes, weird language, plot meandered and it couldn't hold my attention. It was not the best.
Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the opportunity to read this ARC. Opinions are my own.

This one started out strong and I had high expectations based on previous books by Heather Graham. But despite the great sounding plot, this one fell a little flat for me. It is not a terrible read (and bonus points for a dog) but I was expecting more of the AI parts and less of them running around and the relationship between the two agents. The parts where the AI kills (or almost kills) people is glossed over pretty quickly and not super graphic.

The dialogue was also a bit clunky. Lots of exclamation points, some wrong names used in paces and explaining stuff that doesn't need to be explained while it seems to jump over other stuff. It is an uncorrected proof copy so maybe the editor does some heavy lifting but I don't remember finding the same issue in previous books from the author. The pacing also seems off. They manage to catch someone every law enforcement agency has been after in a few hours and get him to confess to multiple crimes but spend days over nothing and going to get smoothies etc.

Then there are things like you are worried enough about AI to change to classic cars etc but walk around with cell phones that could be hacked to listen to your every word and track your location?

The prologue tells you who is behind a lot of it as Marci talks walking into her smart home that will quickly kill her and then you move on to more of a police procedural. But still a question of whether that person was behind her death or if others are involved. I had a feeling during the scene with the warrants that "X" would also be involved. Not any major clues, but a feeling.

Thanks to Netgalley and Harlequin for the advance copy for review.

I hate to give a bad review - but this is not great. I will start with the things that I did like - I was drawn to this because of the premise of a tech smart house killing the inhabitant. That sounds like a really compelling story. I also love the main setting of St Augustine. It's somewhere I am really familiar with and I love reading books that are in areas that I know. Some of the landmarks and descriptions were familiar and well done.
Unfortunately, that is where it ends. On the side of things I did not like - there are issues with the dialogue. It isn't realistic. There were pages with multiple exclamations that weren't necessary. The story pacing was really slow with elements necessary to solve the crime coming in almost coincidentally vs through story or policework in a natural way. While I loved the setting elements were brought in to describe some of the history in a textbook manner vs creatively woven in as part of the story. It was the same with other elements - essentially any type of explanation for something was handled in such a "here is the definition" or "here is the line from the textbook" to describe. These things just weren't handled in a way that was easy to read.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

"Artificial intelligence meets genuine murderous intent.

This state-of-the-art smart home has everything: a next-generation entertainment system, an ultramodern kitchen where every appliance is online and even a personal AI to control it all. Standing above its owner's lifeless body, FBI agent Jude Mackenzie is faced with the daunting task of discovering how the woman was killed by her own home. How do you catch a murderer that doesn't leave any fingerprints?

Enter Special Agent Victoria Tennant, whose familiarity with cybercrime reveals the stark truth: a machine can only do what it's been directed to. As the number of grisly "accidents" begins to rise, the pair must race to uncover the perpetrator even as they find themselves caught in their digital crosshairs! There's nowhere to hide when danger may be as close as the very phones in their pockets."

Not so much rise of the machines as programmers revolt.

I DNF at 50%. I really struggled with this one. The book started off strong but, went down rather quickly. I thought I could finish it but, I dreaded picking it up every time I went to read it. There’s too much fluff and random conversation that had nothing to do with the storyline.