Remember that 1999 Disney movie "smart house"? Katie sagal is a house that becomes a bit too domineering. Well if that movie was made into a thriller, this would be it. The dialoge is clunky and bland. Somehow, despite only have two incidents in separate states with different murder types, the FBI is able to make a whole serial killer out of that and they send in an agent who "happens" to come across the third scene. Again, with no known ties to the other two deaths. The agents, Vikki, is hot. In fact that is repeated many times in the book and is basically the only adjective we receive about her. Hot and young. This point is belabored when she is paired with Jude, who we are told multiple times is so much older than her. We are also told he is 33, which must put Nikki at about 20. He has lots of lascivious comments about her body and how she must have "just stepped off a runway, which are just gross.
At one point these two agents go to a federal prison and get a man to flip on his father for aggravated murder in about 3 questions, despite the man being on death row and most certainly not wanting to be there. This whole book was implausible and poorly written. I would have quit this book after chapter one had I not gotten it from NetGalley. I haven't tried a book from this author before, so I'm hopeful this is a one off and other books are better.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Audio for my ARC of this audiobook.

The FBI is called in when a woman is murdered by her smart home. Every appliance is online and AI helps everything keep running, leaving no trace of the killer. This is just the first in a string of similar incidents so two FBI agents begin to investigate trying to uncover the humans behind these nefarious deeds. Will they make it out alive?

When I was reading through the descriptions, the plot of the murder machine jumped out of something I would enjoy, I love to explore AI as a theme. Unfortunately the execution just wasn't there for me. The AI was almost an afterthought, the middle dragged on with barely a mention of it. The characters were pretty run of the mill, not good, not bad, merely existing to fill out the story. Because of this it is purely a passable/average read. 2.75 stars rounded to 3.

I received this advance audio copy from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.

Don't trust AI!

This book started out so strong. I was hoping for more thrilling AI going wrong but just seems to fall short.

As a whole not a bad book.

Thank you Harper Audio for this gifted ALC.

Heather Graham is usually a slam dunk for me. She’s a solid writer, with bingeable popcorn thrillers. But The Murder Machine was not good. It had all the potential. It reminded me of the premise of the Die Hard 4 with Justin Long. AI was not a tangible thing in 2007, but hacking on an electric grid level was beginning to become a real fear then. I remember being legitimately afraid of that concept: fighting an invisible, intangible monster. So when I saw that was the premise for The Murder Machine - I was there.

But.

I literally had to check that this book was written by a woman, because Agent Victoria screamed FMC written by a man. It was condescending. The mansplaining from Jude was insulting. This book would have been good if it weren’t for the completely deplorable characters of Jude and Victoria.

AI takes center stage in this novel, where a woman appears to have been murdered by the AI that controls every aspect of her home. Two FBI agents are tasked with finding out what happened and even more worryingly finding out if it could happen again.