You've Got Murder

Turing Hopper, Book 1

By: Donna Andrews

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Zack is a workaholic computer expert who created his friend Turing. Turing is a sentient artificial-intelligence personality who has thousands of mystery novels downloaded to her database. With a self-improvement feature, Turing and Zack have taken on numerous challenges together. But when Zack disappears, Turing suspects foul play. She'll have to utilize her personality, her knowledge, and her unique abilities in order to find out what happened to her creator - and her friend.

©2002 Donna Andrews (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC

It is very wordy. Turing has way too much to say

It is very wordy. Turing has way too much to say. Otherwise the story was good and the narrator did a good job

Loved it

I really did love this first book in the Turning Harper series. For years I’ve enjoyed Donna Andrews Meg Langslow series and was apprehensive about this one. Realizing Donna Andrews is an amazing author, I jumped right into this one and have already purchased the next installment. I highly recommend this to cozy mystery fans.

Cutting edge in 2013.

I’m a Donna Andrews fan, for the Meg Langslow series. This Turing Hopper series is new to me. This first book is flush with detail and character building and, perhaps of necessity, the pace of the story gets bogged down from time to time. I honestly skipped through the last 3 hours in 15 minute bites just to get to the climax and see where it would lead. Having slowed back down, the last short chapters were abrupt changes of scene one after another, with one seemingly disconnected, perhaps as a cliffhanger? Several pathways open for how the series could develop and expand. I expect the author’s next book in the series will be more settled and on pace throughout. Looking forward to it.

Good, but seemed a bit long for the story

I enjoyed it overall, but seemed at times the story was a bit drawn out

Suspenful and Entertaining

I love the main character, the AI. This book is written with ingenuity. Great book.

Just wish there were more!

Love this series; just wish there were more. The narrator does a superb job and I’m enjoying listening to the books even more than I enjoyed reading them.

Wow! Great on many levels!

I admire the writer and narrator for their stunning work. This book has a very interesting story, given the time it was written (when modems were plugged into phone jacks) and remarkable thoughts and insights into the potential of AI and the power of data long before the term AI went mainstream. It too is a suspense filled fast paced story with unexpected, surprising twists and logical solutions to situations one cannot imagine a solution for. The characters were only very few and telling this story from the I perspective is a daring experiment which the author and narrator mastered beautifully. I look forward to reading the next books in the series.

An audiobook Winner!

Last year when I attended the Malice Domestic mystery convention, the guest of honor was one of my very favorite authors, Donna Andrews. She told us how she came to write her Turing Hopper series, which contains only four books in it so often gets overlooked. At the first Malice Domestic Andrews attended, before she had any book published, the convention held a writing contest, asking people to write the introduction to a book with the most unusual and improbable detective they could imagine. Andrews was inspired, and the character of Turing Hopper, a sentient AIP (artificial intelligence program) was born. Incidentally, Andrews won the writing contest too.

I was unable to enjoy the books in this series because they were not on audio, and reading full books is painful to me due to severe migraines. So imagine my delight when I discovered that the first book, You’ve Got Murder, was going to be released on audio. I immediately preordered the book, and it was worth the wait!

Turing Hopper is a computer program that has gained sentience, which means that she has learned to go past her programming to develop her own intelligence and personality. When Zack, her programmer, suddenly goes missing, Turing decides she must do her part to save him. In the process, she discovers all sorts of evil that has penetrated Universal Library, which owns all the AIPs. With the help of two unlikely assistants, Turing seeks both to find out what happened to Zack and to stop the bad guys from taking over her company.

You’ve Got Murder was published in 2002, so some of the computer technology is dated, but the book itself is especially relevant for today. I was really fascinated by Turing’s musings of self-analysis over issues of ethics, emotions, and what it means to be a person (opposed to being human). The plot was also well developed and kept my attention glued to the book, with the existential thoughts blended into it seamlessly. One need not know anything about computers or artificial intelligence to be able to enjoy this book, though it does use a lot of computer terms. Soon listeners will come to see Turing as a person, just as the characters in the book do.

I listen to hundreds of audiobooks a year, so it takes a lot to truly impress me, but Bernadette Dunne, already one of my favorite narrators, blew me away with her performance. The book shifts back and forth between 1st person narration from Turing’s perspective to 3rd person narration about the other characters. Dunne does an amazing job of making her voice subtly robotic for Turing’s speech without sounding too stilted or soon growing tedious. As Turing develops her own voice software and becomes better at using it, Dunne gradually develops a little bit more expression for Turing’s speech. Her 1st person and 3rd person performances stand out as distinctly different from each other. I was truly impressed by this audio edition!

If you haven’t figured out by now that I fell in love with You’ve Got Murder, you haven’t been reading my review very carefully. Both the book itself and the audio performance were top-notch and impressed me greatly. This book is so unique in its premise but so accessible to everyone that I’m amazed. May I give it more than 5 stars?

Could not get into it

I listened, but just could not really get into the story. The narration was off for me as well.

Kept waiting for it to get better

Ok story but disappointed with ending. Waited for the twist that never came honestly Luckily was entertaining enough to complete.