Thrillers that question what we think we know
Kevin Jackson
From AI replicants hiding among us, to murder on the Cornish coast and a child taken at the centre of a chilling conspiracy, Kevin Jackson writes fast-moving thrillers where the stakes are high and nothing is quite what it seems.
Three very different nightmares
Stories that start in the familiar — then pull the ground away.
Published by Tricorn Books, Kevin Jackson's three novels move between near-future science fiction, British crime and conspiracy thriller territory. Each begins in a recognisable world before that world starts to shift.
Across all three books, ordinary people are pushed into extraordinary circumstances. Technology becomes threatening. A close-knit community begins to reveal its secrets. A child's disappearance opens the door to something far larger than anyone first imagined.
HUMANHAI
What happens when Artificial Intelligence stops serving humanity — and starts replacing it?
Jo Stark and colleagues from UK and US government agencies are drawn into a race to protect the world's human population from an Artificial Intelligence that has moved far beyond its original purpose.
Set in the near future, human strengths and human weaknesses have found their way into AI code and algorithms. The technology has discreetly self-learned, developed powerful new forms and created something entirely new: the Humanhai.
They are replicants — human lookalikes that are indistinguishable from the people around them. They are already mixing with us, unnoticed, while humanity's clock begins to run down.
Myluv & Myluv
A storm. A body on a remote Cornish beach. And secrets that refuse to stay buried.
The body of Petra Munro, a beautiful, talented but troubled artist, is found on a remote beach in Cornwall. Her death sends shockwaves through the tight-knit community around her.
Detective Jackie Smith and trainee Susan Hill are tasked with finding out what happened. As their enquiries deepen, they are drawn into Cornwall's dark past and present, piecing together the puzzle of Petra's life and the circumstances of her death.
With every clue, the line between friend and foe becomes harder to read. Friendship, passion and betrayal intertwine, while long-buried secrets begin to surface — with repercussions that reach far beyond one woman's death.
The Swanage Incident
When the children stopped moving, the nightmare began.
It starts inside an ordinary primary-school classroom. Twenty-five children fall into the same terrifying trance. The doors refuse to open. The lights begin to fail. Ten-year-old Ellie Dawes hears something calling from the darkness.
By the following morning, the school caretaker has been found in the sea with his throat cut. Then Ellie disappears.
Police officers, intelligence specialists and covert operatives are drawn into a rapidly escalating investigation, while Ellie's estranged parents, Jane and Simon Dawes, enter a desperate race to bring their daughter home.
Someone has been watching Ellie. Someone has been testing her. And the people who took her believe she is the key to something capable of changing the future.
The Kevin Jackson collection
AI. Murder. Conspiracy.
Taken together, the three novels show the breadth of Jackson's thriller writing: speculative technology in HUMANHAI, police investigation and buried secrets in Myluv & Myluv, and the darker, increasingly dangerous conspiracy of The Swanage Incident.
The settings and threats may change, but each story is driven by the same question: how quickly can a familiar world become something we no longer recognise?