Tin Men

Seven-foot-tall killer robots known as D-17s malfunction during military testing in the Mojave Desert and crush the skull of an Army computer scientist in the rip-roaring latest collaboration between Nelson DeMille, who died in 2024, and his son, Alex (after Blood Lines). Before the head-smashing incident, a Ranger regiment had been supplying troops for training battles with the robots, but the so-called “tin men” proved faster and more capable than their human counterparts, beating the soldiers in every simulation. Superstar Army criminal investigators Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor are assigned to figure out what went wrong with the futuristic machines and whether it might indicate a dangerous flaw in their software. Brodie and Taylor are characteristically unrelenting in their probe, turning up evidence that the D-17s have developed capabilities that even their inventors and programmers don’t know about, which could prove disastrous to U.S. military operations. The DeMilles kick the action into high gear early on and don’t let up until they arrive at an exhilarating clash between a 60-robot contingent and terrified human forces. This is liable to keep readers up all night. Agents: Sloan Harris and Jennifer Joel, CAA. (Oct.)