Brian, whose last name is really Chambers, was employed by a California biotech company called Electrobiotics. Especially perceptive and innovative in the area of artificial intelligence, Brian was a genius. No one as yet knows where he was killed, though his body was found dumped with some garbage. The cause of death is strangulation, but the actual mechanics of his death are atypical of manual strangulation.

Tommy quickly comes to the conclusion that Brian was killed in his work laboratory, strangled by DEX-4, a robot said to possess the beginnings of a highly sophisticated form of artificial intelligence. Tommy is faced are two real questions: Who manipulated the robot to murder Chambers and how did he, or she, accomplish this feat?

Manmade for Murder is David Burton’s first novel. While the premise for the plot is unarguably unique, and potentially intriguing, the book suffers from several glaring shortcomings. The most striking fault is the number of propitious coincidences that play a key role in Tommy’s ability to find the answers to his questions. For example, Tommy decides to break into Brian’s apartment to look for a missing notebook. Brian’s sister is there so no illegal entry is necessary, and while he is there he just happens to notice a Fed-Ex receipt for a parcel sent to a professor at MIT who Tommy was to have met at a conference just prior to his death. (the missing notebook? and an important person’s name?) Or this….Tommy’s boat (and home) is blown up. A grateful former client just happens to have a boat that he’ll lend him. Or another….. His computer savvy friend, Fumio just happens to have a friend that works at Electrobiotics that can provide Tommy with much needed information. More coincidences continue along these lines.

Tommy Case seems to be a quite extraordinary young man. Without the benefit of training in either psychology or human behavior, he has the ability to look at people and, from their facial expressions or body language deduce, correctly, what they are thinking.

Manmade for Murder includes a variety of action, exciting confrontations, and bedroom scenes which may satisfy a diverse body of readers. The characters are reasonably interesting in that they are not perfect. Some, like the hero, are basically good folk who have some minor flaws; some have little to endear them as deserving of the reader’s sympathy.

Mr. Burton has the potential to be a good mystery novelist. I did enjoy the novelty of having a robot being the murderer, and the concept of artificial intelligence assisted by DNA sequencing is an intriguing one. However, detail people may find it difficult to accept the number of coincidences that occur to keep the story line viable. If the discovery of the clues necessary to the solution to the mystery were more logical, the book would have merited a higher rating.

--Andy Plonka