Publisher's Synopsis
A series of murders in the party island of Mykonos rocks the Web. A data scientist has less than a week to become a cop.
Manos Manu arrives on the Greek island of Mykonos to attend a friend's luxurious wedding, but soon finds himself on the hunt for a serial killer. The murderer abducts his victims, runs their body through with chains and sinks them offshore attached to a buoy scrawled with the word "FREE".
Local police find plenty of clues: boat rentals and hotel reservations, DNA samples and last sightings. But when the murders start making the rounds of social media, they're in over their head.
Enter Manu, a data scientist who gave up lucrative Silicon Valley for Interpol only so he could freely "run multiple models on human actors". His problem now? Every move he makes is met with suspicion: his wealthy friends question his career in law enforcement, and the Greek police are baffled by his methods. His machine learning system tracks online media use to find killers, but it's untested. He needs datasets, but they're classified. And Interpol headquarters in Singapore don't like him squandering resources or - much worse - exposing the entire program to the scrutiny of global media.
But the victims multiply. The crisis deepens. And Manu's machine learning models plunge them into data correlations impossible to fathom.
For more information about the book and its author, visit www.themachinemurders.com.
*** UPDATED EDITION ***Excerpt. (c) Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
"I grew up here," murmured Lena. "For me, murderers were for other places. Places with grey skies, poverty, subsidized housing. Not here."
"That's why you chose criminology? A longing for cloudy skies and ghettos?" Manos asked.
"What about you?" she countered. They smiled at each other as their glasses were being filled.
"It's not so much crime," Manos answered. "It's more. Missing numbers, the data loss. Like looking for a street number. House number 24 should be right next to 22 - but it's gone! That's what I'm after. That disconnect."
"And do you find what you're after?"
"So far. But then, every time I do, someone's died."
"Feeling tired? I bet you are."
"I ...tired."
"You're in a dream, that's why you're here. I'm your dream."
"What... what should I do?"
"I want you to open your mouth and suck on this fat straw. And when I tell you, I want you to just let go of your whole body so you can taste the flavor I'm going to give you."
"Will it... be chocolate?"
"Oh, I mustn't tell! You'll have to tell me."
"I suck on the straw..."
"See how big it is? Did you see where it's drawing from?"
"Suck..."
"It draws right down from the sky, you see? Sucking on life itself. You can even catch it. Lift your arms, catch it!"
"I can ca..."
"Catch it. Take it in your arms. Turn your body, that's it! Nice and high. I'm going to pour some life into you - ready?"
"Ye -" Fischer drew an imaginary line from the barrel along the trajectory of his shot and pulled the trigger. *** "Dr. Manu. Over four billion people are contributing as we speak to research on AI and machine learning."
"Someone should let them know it." Quiet.
Zao had the upper hand.
"I know your difficulty in procuring quality data. In the end, they'll give you nothing - even pull the plug on you. Is there anything worse than being forbidden to dream?" Manos considered a moment.
"Yes," he answered. "Having your dreams dictated to y
