Back to the honor of reviewing an advance reading copy, this time for Bruce Holsinger’s “Culpability”. I had only read one of his books, 2022’s superb “The Displacements”. I was so thrilled by it that he instantly shot up my “keep an eye out for whatever’s next” list! I jumped at the chance to read an advanced copy of his next novel, even rearranging my reading list and bumping back both the new Stephen King (my favorite author, which speaks volumes) as well as the new Linwood Barclay (who, oddly enough, made me discover Bruce Holsinger’s “The Displacements” as he had highly recommended it at an author event I attended). Yes, that placed the bar quite high for Culpability to live up to. And it ended up easily clearing that bar.

There’s a lot to be said for a book title, especially when they constantly linger in your mind as you read the book. It was the case with Holsinger’s “The Displacements”, and it’s very much the case with “Culpability”. What a word! There’s a lot to unpack in the title, a lot of layers of complexity and deep thoughts. Holsinger weaves a perfect tale of family drama combined with a very timely moral reflection on Artificial Intelligence (AI), a personal and technological recalibration of sorts!

Culpability is a story of tragedy and fault, the very interpretation of responsibility and accountability, within the microcosm of a family and in society at large. A moral tale about the varying levels of truth, and a requestioning of technology’s place in our very lives. Culpability is a matter of perspective, or rather, perspectives and interpretations. Richly crafted with complex character development and impeccable setting, Holsinger delivers a story that’s certain to stay with us long after we’ve read it and bound to become more and more relevant in the not-so-distant future.

One of the rules of reading and reviewing an advanced copy is not to quote it. This is quite unfortunate as Culpability contains so many perfectly crafted sentences that made me both think and say “Wow” out loud. And I am not one to Wow easily! Not only was the pace just right, but the descriptions of physical places as well as emotional states of mind were so well written that they amplified the story’s already heightened impact.

While this was only my second Bruce Holsinger read, it furthers my admiration and thorough enjoyment of his pen and his approach to storytelling. I give this book a rock solid 5/5 stars and really hope it soars to the top of the bestseller lists after its release, as it truly is deserving of the attention and success. What a literary treat! Bravo, and well done.

From the blurb and the fact the main character is a lawyer, I expected this book to focus on AI through a moral and legal lense, The MC's wife is a philosopher specializing in AI and even so, we get a lot less philosophy than expected. The main plot of this book is family drama, with technology and philosophy consistent on-going themes, The book feels contradictory at times: sometimes using technology (cell phones for example) as a tool to will misfortune on children in the book (the driver texting, the teenager falling off board while trying to save her phone) as well as some fear mongering regarding the use of drones, Other times, the book talks about military use of AI, etc and while the author wrapped it around the wife's secret work project, the super-secret NDA fell flat and the execution of this "plot-twist" felt lackluster. This book had the potential to be a groundbreaking novel on AI and moral responsibility and instead felt like an exploration of family dynamics with a small side of technology fear mongering.

I think this book has the perfect formula of all the things that make reading amazing and so valuable in my life!

-a quick grab entry into the book
-engaging plot that doesn't waver
-good character development
-multiple POV's, and I didn't prefer one over another! A rare thing.
-a strong look at decisions and after effects
-a lot of morals to consider, and makes the reader unsure how one should handle the situation
-a few twists that keeps the reader engaged
-light mystery with a concern for those involved
-makes the reader assess their own life

You don't need to know a lot going into this one, but here are a few points of interest to know if it's for you. The effects of the looming AI in our real world, and the devastating effects that can be brought upon us by a computer of sorts. Interpersonal relationships within our own families, considering that a "secret can be more wounding than a lie".

This is an easy recommendation for me to share. I literally read this book in one day which I haven't done in years.

Thank you to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for the gifted e-arc of this book.

I really liked the themes of A.I.in this book. The author did a good job explaining the dangers of A.I. in the near future. The story started off kind of slow, but ultimately the story really picked around the halfway mark. If you like sad and complex family dynamics/storylines then this will delight your reading taste. I thought I would like the overall story more, but it is a well written novel about what is truly important in life.

3.75 ⭐️
This is definitely a book that will make you think.If you are interested in a story about family drama that intertwines AI and the ethics surrounding it this might be a novel for you . The story also dives into themes of guilt, privilege and responsibility .

I felt it dragged a bit and I didn’t really like any of the characters , but that might be the point—the novel to me seems less about likable people and more about uncomfortable truths.

A thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley.

‘Culpability’ is about a family escaping a tragic accident and how it haunts them. The setting is in a remote house, with their neighbours being tech billionaires. We follow the family dynamics but also how the family ends up entwined with their only neighbours.
The setting is haunting and creates a really eerie tone to the novel, something just always feels off. The novel poses the question of, who is really to blame when technology, and AI, fails us? It delves into many ethical and philosophical debates and theories and directly throughout the novel relates the narrative to scholarly sources. This was a really unique and engaging concept. It reminds the reader continuously that these are real problems we have to consider.

Thanks to #netgalley for this advanced copy of #culpability.

Culpability by Bruce Holsinger is a haunting and high-stakes family drama that dissects responsibility in the age of artificial intelligence.

The novel opens with a crash; a self-driving minivan has collided with an oncoming car, leaving an elderly couple dead and the Cassidy-Shaw family forever fractured. Seventeen-year-old Charlie was in the driver’s seat, (though technically he wasn’t driving at all). His mother, Lorelei, a world-renowned AI researcher was lost in her laptop while her husband, Noah, sat beside their son working on his phone. In the back, preteens Izzy and Alice were buried in their screens.

As the dust settles and lawsuits loom, the family escapes to the Chesapeake Bay in search of stillness. But the isolation only highlights the tension. When the neighbor in a the heavily guarded estate next door turns out to be Daniel Monet—a tech mogul with ties to Lorelei’s past and secrets of his own. Noah cannot help but be suspicious.

What makes Culpability so effective is its refusal to settle for simple villains or easy resolutions. Holsinger doesn’t just pose questions about responsibility in the age of AI—he examines how those questions play out within families, industries, and individual consciences. It's a novel that lingers not because of spectacle, but because of its precision in capturing what it means to live and make choices under the weight of modern technology.

#Culpability #BruceHolsinger #ArtificialIntelligence #SpiegelAndGrau

Thank you to Spiegel & Grau for the advanced copy in exchange for the honest review.

I'll be thinking about this book for a long time. AI is a topic that has been on my mind and heart a lot lately and this book really brought forward many of my own questions. What do we do now? How do we move forward? Do we ignore AI? Do we embrace it? Who is responsible for ensuring it's ethical? Is there any stopping it?

The story and the family hooked me immediately and I was eager to see how each of their lives were impacted. I did not expect some of the twists and turns and loved how it all came together in the end.

I definitely recommend!

I loved this book. I was a huge fan of The Gifted School, and Culpability absolutely lived up to it—maybe even topped it. The themes are so timely and thought-provoking, but never heavy-handed. The character development? Incredible. Holsinger nails the complexities of family dynamics in a way that feels both emotionally real and uncomfortably relatable. There were a few twists I didn’t see coming, and I found myself totally absorbed from start to finish. Smart, layered, and genuinely hard to put down. 5/5 stars, highly highly recommend.

This is not a subject I’m particularly interested in, though based on this book, perhaps AI should be more to the forefront of my life and thoughts. I don’t knowingly use AI e.g. Siri, ChatGPT, but I’m sure it’s there in the background.
As to this book, I didn’t like all the AI papers etc. supposedly written by the mother Lorelei, in fact I skipped over them. There were some good twists, which took a while to come, so I felt the story dragged a bit, especially with regards to the father not telling his wife things he had found out, particularly concerning Charlie.
A reasonable write which may appeal to those more interested in AI.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

As up to date as today’s headlines, Culpability has the reader consider who is to blame when artificial intelligence (AI) makes the wrong decisions. We know AI takes an active role in self-driving cars, drones, the written word, and much more to come. Perhaps the greatest problem is the interaction between ordinary people and AI-controlled machinery.

In Culpability, a family of five is riding in their new self-driving minivan. An accident occurs and two elderly people in another car are killed. Where does the culpability rest?

This book felt very timely in a world where AI is so front and center! It tells the story of a family grappling with the aftereffects of a car crash they were all involved in, wherein their teen son was behind the wheel of an autonomous vehicle. You get to see the perspective of each family member as they work through their own sense of responsibility for the accident, while at the same time the author intersperses commentary on the larger world of machine learning and human vs robot moral relativity. It was a slow start for me, but I'm glad I stuck with it as I ended up really enjoying it.

NetGalley/Spiegel & Grau ARC

Culpability started out as a page-turner but slowly devolved into a magnum opus about AI (Artificial Intelligence), algorithms, and their impact on human morality and conscience. It was a bit too technical for me and I found it very repetitive.

The narrative is centered on an autonomous vehicle driven by AI that happens to collide with another vehicle head-on. The issues arising from this crash are several: What is the culpability of Charlie, the 17-year old son of Noah and Lorelei, who was at the wheel and texting at the time of the accident? Was AI at fault or was it human error? How does one carry, in their conscience, the deaths of two other drivers in the other vehicle? What is the role of morality and choice in this age of AI and algorithms?

Lorelei and Noah have three children: Charlie has just won a full La Crosse scholarship to the University of North Carolina; Izzie, a sweet and ethereal child whose leg is broken in the accident, and Alice, a mysterious child who suffers a concussion in the accident. The Drummonds are the elderly couple whose lives were lose in the accident.

Lorelei comes from a family of very high achievers. She teaches at Johns Hopkins and has various speaking engagements and private contracts. Noah comes from a lower echelon family than Lorelei. He is an attorney but does not have the status of Lorelei. He thinks that her family looks down on him.

Along with the narrative about the accident and its aftermath, the reader is bombarded with information about AI, most of it excerpts from papers that Lorelei has published. To be honest, the mathematics and algorithms of AI did not interest me and they were way above my grade level. What did interest me were the ethical and moral considerations concomitant with the ubiquitous use of AI in our culture.

The novel has mystery, romance, and familial dissonance alongside its examination of AI's impact on humankind. What stands out for me is the way the author explored culpability, conscience and guilt in our technologically infused world. This book was a poor choice for me to read. I am not a techie, nor do I have more than a basic understanding of higher level mathematics. I think scientists, mathematicians, and perhaps ethicists would be a better audience for this novel.

In this family drama, secrets emerge from an accident involving a self-driving car. Technology comes into play, both negatively and positively. The author raises issues about AI and its effect on our lives and the future. An accomplished wife is a global authority on AI creation and analysis, but her lawyer husband knows little about it. Their three children all have unique personalities, but they all rely on technology to stay connected. The book will leave you thinking about the ethics of AI and its effects on our psyche.

When an autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car, killing its two passengers, there is enough blame to go around. As revelations surface, the story evolves into the moral responsibility of the driver versus the responsibility of AI. “Culpability” explores this new world we’re heading into with the newest technology and it’s very relevant right now.

This book made me think like no book has ever done in the past. I have so many discussions with my husband about AI and we are on opposite ends of the spectrum. I definitely need to think about this a little more, and after I put more thought and research into the matter, I will pick this up again for a fresh look.

Thank you, NetGalley and Spiegel and Grau for the advanced reader copy.

The Run-Down: The ethical dilemmas posed by AI technology are fascinating in their own right, but Bruce Holsinger chooses to explore them within the context of a gripping family drama in Culpability with explosive results.


Review:

Noah Cassidy-Shaw is a man who knows his place. His wife, Lorelai, inhabits the upper echelons of academia and the tech industry as the foremost expert in Artificial Intelligence and ethics; Noah exists comfortably in her shadow as a lawyer, patient husband, and father to their three children. He hopes that his seventeen-year-old son, Charlie, will pursue brilliance in his own right as a future collegiate lacrosse star. Their family’s life is violently upended after a severe car accident spares their lives but kills two elderly people in the other car. Questions immediately arise: the car was self-driving with AI technology, but Charlie was at the wheel, and Noah was the supervising adult. Their family unity is put to a severe test as the stakes of the criminal investigation mount higher. Who is to blame?

Culpability is immediately engrossing in its intrigue. The tension and drama mount steadily and Holsinger delivers plot twist after plot twist. The thriller-esque plotline might feel ludicrous in another’s author’s hands—after all, most domestic thrillers that involve scheming tech billionaires and star-crossed teenage romance would quickly fall into the category of camp. However, Holsinger grounds his larger-than-life narrative in careful character work and realistic family dynamics. Small, mundane details reveal the unique ecosystem of the Cassidy-Shaw family and how the situation pressures all member’s insecurities and fears. Every character action and plot-point can be tied directly to these characters’ deeply human tendencies, which stand in stark contrast to the AI technology at the novel’s center.

Remarkably, Culpability manages to conclude in a manner that is narratively, thematically, and emotionally satisfying. It is a strong example as to why fiction is not merely helpful for thinking through problems of technological ethics, but essential.


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

3.5* rounded down. I enjoyed this novel, but it didn't blow me away. There was enough going on that I wanted to keep reading. I can tell the author is knowledgable on the topics discussed, though it still left me wanting more in a way that's hard to put into words. Felt kind of like ordering a meal you've been craving, only for it not to scratch the itch.

Very interesting read about Al and family drama mixed with the responsibility of technology.
Overall, I enjoyed it, I thought the plot was good and liked that it kept me guessing, but I don't think I was the target audience for this book. A lot went over my head when it came to the technical terminology and snippets about Al. If tech is something you enjoy, would definitely recommend this book! I can imagine more books incorporating Al and the morals that tag along with it in the future!

Very interesting read about responsibility in the age of tech, especially advanced AI systems like self-driving cars. The book really shows how tech and the consequent responsibilities permeate almost every aspect of modern life. Although the AI commentary was sometimes too on the nose
(more telling than showing), overall the book had a good balance of this commentary and an interesting plot. It wasn't just about technology, but also human psychology and how the two are intertwined.

I loved the epigraphs (?) that preceded the chapters with a variety of formats including excerpts from a character’s book, chatbot logs, and even a research paper!! Overall a very well written, sociopolitically relevant, and unique book, and I felt it stayed true to the technical details as well as the Maryland/Virginia setting :)

So this is the first book I've read about self driving cars and possibility not the last. Bruce Holsinger's book opens with the Cassidy-Shaw family "driving" an autonomous minivan whilst all of them are on their devices. An accident happens. Who's to blame?
Holsinger's book explores the dilemma of ethics in AI.

In this age, noone can afford to be ignorant about AI and its ethical implications so this is a nice romp through that hinterland. I did lose interest on occasion, for instance I still have no idea who the child Alice was texting and the NetGalley reader is a bit glitchy (obviously, it's not possible to read a book about tech on NetGalley's new tech) so it spins out of control every so often and you cannot reclaim your place.

The narrator is an interesting choice. Noah is a so-so lawyer surrounded by much more impressive women but he's not bitter about it although he does occasionally show neanderthal tendencies, perving at the kids in swimgear, wanting to bang his wife at the slightest provocation.

We have a somewhat blurred version of Elon Musk popping up too , as their next door neighbor in their holiday villa.

Some readers described this as overwritten, I wouldn't agree with that. Bruce Holsinger clearly has an academic leaning but if anything, it added to the book's credibility.

Overall, quite a compulsive read even though I lost interest some way through.