Set in 2045, the story follows firefighter Miro Jackson, a member of Australia’s elite Predict, Prevent, and Control Unit, which uses a technology called MindLink to anticipate and prevent disasters before they occur. When the Delroy family dies in a suspicious house fire, Miro, informed by his former career in the New South Wales Police Force and a series of personal tragedies, begins to suspect that advanced AI systems may have influenced the outcome. The narrative then shifts to FBI agent Catalina Herrera, who’s investigating a series of unusual deaths in the American Midwest. Victims using Agentic’s augmented reality systems appear to ignore life-threatening storm warnings, raising concerns that AI-driven interfaces may be manipulating human perceptions and behavior. (“My theory, to be tested, is that our killer uses some device or psychological trick to persuade our victims to remain in a situation of almost certain death.”) As the investigations in Australia and the United States begin to overlap, the story expands into a broader conspiracy involving corporate power and environmental collapse. Miro’s deployment to the United States brings him into a collaboration, and personal connection, with Cat, even as attacks on global energy infrastructure escalate and conspiracies deepen within government and industry. Additional perspectives, including those of a mysterious observer known as the Watcher, a narrative commentary on the environmental cost of large-scale AI systems, and Agentic CEO Roger Saxton, who struggles with power issues to keep his AI running, broaden the scope of the novel. Edwards has constructed a fast-paced, high-concept narrative grounded in a timely premise about AI and its societal influence, but while the plot is consistently engaging and ambitious in scope, the frequent shifts in perspective and limited character development limit its emotional depth and blunt the novel’s overall impact.