Darkscan

Nobody surprises — or unsettles — readers quite like DeAnna Knippling, veteran author of over 80 books.

New Year’s Eve. Cheers, champagne, a countdown. The ball drops at midnight—and the Templeton Building in downtown Minneapolis goes dark and silent.

The building disappears from all outside contact: no Internet, no phone calls, no wifi, no radio. No way in through the newly sealed windows and doors. All while a blizzard pounds the city at ten below.

Two hundred wealthy partygoers walked into the ritzy high-tech skyscraper.

None walked out.

Hard-nosed private investigator Frank Mallory, veteran of the sticky gray areas where technology crosses with crime, gets called in for an emergency job:

Enter the Templeton Building. Use a pair of AI-powered lenses called Darkscan to navigate the unstable darkness. Extract the client’s ex-wife.

Then walk back out.

A claustrophobic near-future noir about the savage cost of mistaking obedience for intelligence.