The Sandbox

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What to expect

An activist entrepreneur, a maligned AI, and a newly minted homicide detective with a haunted past catastrophically intersect in The Sandbox. The Silence of the Lambs meets Ex Machina in this groundbreaking techno-thriller that redefines the meaning of murder in the twenty-first century.

When the CEO of the world’s leading artificial intelligence company is found murdered in his home, former Army CID officer Valerie Marks is thrust into her first case as a homicide detective. Valerie has a gift for reading people, a gift that has never failed her before. But that gift is put to the test when her instincts point her to an impossible suspect—an AI born from a secret venture with the Pentagon known as Project Nomad.

To learn the truth, Valerie must team up with two men she doesn’t trust—a Green Beret turned government spook from the Pentagon, and the victim’s former partner and leading suspect in the case. But nothing can prepare the trio for the dangers that await them and the existential threat to humanity if the Project Nomad AI has somehow escaped its sandbox.

Critics Review

  • “Wow! The Sandbox is a real killer of a novel…Devious plot twists, relatable characters, and insights into AI technology that are truly chilling! Highly recommended.”

    Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Kagen the Damned and Cave 13
  • “Andrews and Wilson have outdone themselves in their genre-bending new novel, The Sandbox. Mixing classic sci-fi themes—think Philip K. Dick and Robert Heinlein—with their unbeatable pacing and military action scenes makes this a nonstop thrill ride. But what really makes this a standout novel is the bad guy. In the sentient AI system named Charlie, Andrews and Wilson have created the most disturbing and frightening antagonist since Arthur C. Clarke’s HAL 9000. A nemesis so powerful that he can plunge his victims into a VR-generated haunted house where they can no longer discern the digital from the real. And the scariest thing of all is that this isn’t science fiction. This is the technology that is at our fingertips today. Highly recommended.”

    Brian Nelson, author of The Last Sword Maker
  • “Reality and virtual reality collide when a murder case evolves into a nightmarish battle that pits a homicide detective, an ex–Green Beret, and a computer genius against ‘Charlie,’ a sinister artificial intelligence program in an epic struggle for nothing less than control of men’s minds. The Sandbox proves beyond doubt that Andrews and Wilson, authors of the bestselling Tier One series, are truly the masters of suspense.”

    Larry Alexander, author of the bestseller Biggest Brother: The Life of Major Dick Winters, Leader of the Band of Brothers
  • “[Andrews & Wilson] bring the gritty realism and action of their covert-ops thrillers to the grounded sci-fi world of AI. A nonstop roller coaster of a read!”

    Rhett C. Bruno, USA Today and Washington Post bestselling author
  • “Andrews and Wilson have crafted an intense and eerily timely techno-thriller; it’s Silence of the Lambs meets HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The series will make readers think twice before asking Alexa or Siri a question, but they’ll want to play in this sandbox.”

    Library Journal

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