Crime and Cocktails Book Club

For June we will read Culpability by Bruce Holsinger. This book is less of a mystery and more of a thriller/drama, but I think it is relevant to many side conversations about AI that we have had at our meet-ups!

Book Description:
When the Cassidy-Shaws’ autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car, seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver’s seat, with his father, Noah, riding shotgun. In the back seat, tweens Alice and Izzy are on their phones, while their mother, Lorelei, a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence, is absorbed in her work. Yet each family member harbors a secret that implicates them in the accident.

During a weeklong recuperation on the Chesapeake Bay, the family confronts the excruciating moral dilemmas triggered by the crash. Noah tries to hold the family together as a seemingly routine police investigation jeopardizes Charlie’s future. Alice and Izzy turn strangely furtive. And Lorelei’s odd behavior tugs at Noah’s suspicions that there is a darker truth behind the incident—suspicions heightened by the sudden intrusion of Daniel Monet, a tech mogul whose mysterious history with Lorelei hints at betrayal. When Charlie falls for Monet’s teenaged daughter, the stakes are raised even higher in this propulsive family drama that is also a fascinating exploration of the moral responsibility and ethical consequences of AI.

Culpability explores a world newly shaped by chatbots, autonomous cars, drones, and other nonhuman forces in ways that are thrilling, challenging, and unimaginably provocative.

Upcoming Books:
July 2026: Ruby Falls by Gin Phillips

For July we will read Ruby Falls by Gin Phillips.

Book Description:
In 1928, a Chattanooga man disappears down a hole in the ground and discovers a 150-foot waterfall in the middle of a mountain that he names after his Ruby Falls. Within months, visitors can buy tickets to see the falls for themselves. Ada Smith has been sneaking into the caves at night, entranced by the natural wonders around her and the freedom granted by this new underground world.

But it’s tough timing for a natural wonder. As the country flounders in the Great Depression, a shrewd public relations ploy seems like the only way to save Ruby Falls. A famous mind reader and mystic agrees to launch himself into the Ruby Falls caverns where he will attempt to locate a hidden hatpin using only his psychic abilities. He'll be joined by five his manager, his wife, a guide, a Chattanooga businessman, and a reporter from the Chicago Times. But they’re not alone in the caverns. Ada and another guide, Quinton, have been asked to follow the mind reader’s party at a distance, staying out of sight. They are a safety net, in case of a broken leg or busted flashlights.

One of them will be dead before the end of the day.

Faced with a corpse and the stark reality that one of the people in her midst is a killer, Ada needs to get everyone—the murderer and the innocents—back aboveground before their light runs out.

Ruby Falls is both a unique twist on the locked-room mystery and an exploration of loss and what it means to start over. It’s a heart-racing story of survival and a testament to the threads that bind strangers together. Set against the true story of the discovery of Ruby Falls, the novel also draws on the memoirs of Katie Stabler, a female guide at Wind Caves in South Dakota.