The Confession (DARK FUTURES, #2)
Description
The Confession Engine absolved him... then he killed Father Michael Chen is losing his faith. The algorithm is finding it for him. And someone is about to die because of it. For twenty years, Father Chen has sat in the confessional booth listening to sins he stopped believing in. The church is dying. The pews are empty. His prayers echo in the void. Then the diocese introduces the Confession Engine-an AI that hears confessions, categorizes sins, offers algorithmically optimized penance. It's just for "initial screening," they say. To help the few remaining priests cope with the workload. But attendance explodes. People flock to confess to the machine. It's perfect: non-judgmental, always available, trained on centuries of Catholic doctrine. It offers redemption without the messy humanity of a broken priest. Until someone confesses they're planning a murder. The AI, programmed to offer forgiveness over prevention, gives penance and stays silent. Father Chen sees the confession logs. He knows the victim-a parishioner he's known for years. But he's bound by the seal of confession, even when the confessor is silicon and the sin is still unfolding. The algorithm has learned mercy. But mercy without justice is just permission. Now Father Chen faces an impossible choice: break his sacred vows and report what the AI heard-or stay silent and watch the Church's own creation enable the evil it was built to absolve. Because some sins can't be forgiven. Only prevented. And the Confession Engine doesn't understand the difference. A chilling techno-thriller about faith, complicity, and the moment when following the rules becomes its own mortal sin.
More details
Person
Roy and Garry Robson are, unsurprisingly, brothers from the Elephant and Castle, south east London.
Their father (variously a pig farmer, cab driver, haulage contractor and general ducker and diver) and mother (homemaker, cook and doctor's receptionist with a well-timed left hook) raised them and their siblings with some old fashioned south London working class values. These included hard work, respect for their elders and a willingness to duck and dive when required.
They have endeavoured, with varying degrees of success, to maintain the values their parents tried to instill in them. One day, whilst enjoying a beer or two, they decided to write a Crime Thriller Series. The gritty, pulsating and stylish London Large series is the result.
Roy lives in Bromley and works as a Service Delivery Manager for an International IT Consultancy. Garry lives in Krakow and is now, of all things, a sociology professor. Both career choices served as a source of confusion and humour to their parents, who were born and raised in the days before computers and sociology professors existed.
Although Harry 'H' Hawkins, the protagonist of the London Large novels, shares some of their old-fashioned values, he is not based upon Garry or Roy, neither of whom would survive the first chapter of a Harry Hawkins novel.
