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.
How many social posts would it take to encourage those who have "dark personality traits" to commit a particularly horrific type of serial murders? Scattered randomly around the world - would anyone notice?
Welcome to THE MACHINE MURDERS.
A series of gruesomely mutilated victims washes up in a Greek island. When the "buoy murders" become a social media sensation, Manos Manu, a data scientist-turned-Interpol cop realizes social influence means different things to different people; including serial killers.
For more information about the book and its author, visit www.themachinemurders.com.
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Excerpt. (c) Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
He thought all waters must ultimately reveal their identity. The cold blue of Cape Cod is nothing like the Indian Ocean's pastels. A Californian could say the same of his steel-grey Pacific, or a Thai contemplating the turquoise Gulf of Thailand. Manos Manu was dreaming of a machine learning system that could pinpoint a location given a single image through a virtually infinite dataset of ocean pics. Their colors and currents, the unmistakable hues of their depths, the breadth of the sun's rays on their surface, the water temperature, the kind of sand. A neural network would even classify the living organisms contained in each and every drop.
Manos Manu was on holiday in Mykonos when the officer from the Cyclades Police precinct asked him to investigate a sunken corpse found in the waters of Ornos there. Manos instantly agreed, mostly to work on his plan. He now found himself on waters of his own origins, its pure, sparkling colors surging as if from a wellspring at the earth's core. His beloved Greece.
The harbor boat sliced through the breezes with a tranquil, self-assured drone.
"Captain Panagiotis here was Director at our local Authority for twenty years, way before I came," Officer Bellas was saying. Manos turned to the captain, who kept his eyes ahead and said nothing. On the opposite deck, an equally silent Coast Guard diver deftly arranged his gear.
"His daughter Lena is a criminologist," continued the officer.
This name got the captain's attention. He gave Manos a smile, sizing him up.
"You're here for the conference too, eh?" he asked.
Manos had seen a large poster at the airport boasting of the criminology symposium. Day one in Greece, and I'm already at a seaside crime scene. Tomorrow, a seaside criminology conference. No country for those with aversion to salt.
"Uh, I'm on vacation."
"Mr. Manu is from the States," explained the officer. "He's with Interpol."
"Interpol in America?" asked the captain.
"Interpol Singapore," Bellas answered again.
"So, there's Interpol in Singapore..." the older man said, as if to himself.
Manos cleared his throat. "Our Global Complex for Innovation is there." His Greek, learned mostly in New York, was halting but correct.
The two natives looked at him, uncomprehending.
"My division is based there," he said.
Manos could see thoughts of pay grades and rank flit across their faces and then vanish. Coolly, the captain asked, "And Interpol sent you here?"
"We were just getting acquainted, and I asked him to come take a look," said Bellas.
Captain Panagiotis gave them a sharp look, then shrugged his shoulders. "Someone goes down every summer," he said.
The officer was staring at the water. "This one's particular."
