Mystery fiction comes in a variety of sub-genres. Carolyn Wheat, in her excellent book, How to Write Killer Fiction, lists the following types: the Classic Whodunit which includes sub-sub-genres such as the Regional Mystery (think Tony Hillerman, Margaret Maron, or John Burdett), the Historical Mystery (Anne Perry’s Victorian era novels, or Jeri Westerton’s tales from 14^th century London), Noir-Mysteries (ala Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammet, Walter Mosley, or Sue Grafton), and The Police Procedural (which includes the novels of writers Michael Connelly, Elizabeth George, and P.D. James). But there are no robots here.

While robot detectives have been seen numerous times on television (see for example http://www.geekexchange.com/logical-crime-stoppers-human-and-robot-detectives-67089.html), I have not been able to find many examples in literature. Isaac Asimov’s R. Daneel Olivaw is an early robot detective featured in the author’s Robot science-fiction series. Science-fiction author A. Lee Martinez published The Automatic Detective in 2008. But within the mystery genre I’ve only been able to find two other authors who have created AI sleuths.

Donna Andrews came first with her series of books about Turing Hopper, an Artificial Intelligence Personality who mostly resides in the mainframe of the Universal Library corporation and solves crimes in and around Washington, D.C. beginning with You’ve Got Murder.

More recently, Dave Zeltserman published several stories about a private eye named Julius Katz who loves good food, fine wine and gambling. Katz is assisted by the artificial intelligence Archie, who lives inside a two-inch long titanium case that Katz often wears as a tie clip. Katz and Archie are clearly offspring of Nero Wolfe and his Archie. My AI sleuth, Digital Dick, was likewise inspired by Nero Wolfe, and I believe that is the case for Donna Andrews’ Turing Hopper, too.

Digital Dick exists in a rather small corner of the world of mysteries. Do you think it is a good thing that I have a relatively rare spin on the detective novel, or a bad thing?