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Ray Gabriel likes to work late into the cool Seattle night, when the combination of caffeine and mental fatigue kicks his brain into overdrive. He's driven by intense commercial competition to finish building his breakthrough creation, a computer program that imitates logical deduction. But the terrible, fatal fall of Father Peter from a gargoyle of the university cathedral pulls him out of scientific research and into the real world. Ray is the only witness, and before he knows it, he and his intelligent computer program, christened Sherlock-in-a-Box, are called on for help. Miriam Towson, a cathedral engineer with an upright integrity but a past she'd rather not discuss, has reason to suspect that the priest was pushed. Operating from his floating home, Ray works feverishly to feed Sherlock Holmes' sleuthing techniques into Sherlock-in-a-Box. But he also needs to round out the program with the irrational side of humanity. His journey is fraught with a riveting and often humorous blend of psychology, religion, and metaphysics, as he searches for the truth. Dr. Julius Dexter teaches Ray about his psychological theories, which seem as much Machiavellian as Freudian. Fathers Aquilino and Zebediah weigh in on belief systems. Perhaps the greatest lessons are learned from an unexpected source, the metaphysical channeler Madame Xaviera. Until Sherlock has all the bugs worked out, it unfortunately leads Ray down the wrong path. And when the bugs are worked out, the program offers conclusions that Ray doesn't want to hear. In discovering the murderer, he also discovers the limitations of logic in an investigation that skirts the fringes of reason. Prodigal Logic is a literate and sophisticated mystery. But while the plot is intricate and tangled, the style is reader-friendly, the humor is sly and understated, and the characters have a quirky eccentricity that are sure to delight and intrigue. |
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