The residents of Garrett Island off the coast of Massachusetts are part of a visionary experiment and a grand PR exercise, as they have all give up conventional cars in favour of a fleet of driverless vehicles called Arrivals, in Linwood Barclay’s international bestselling crime thriller,  Look Both Ways with characterization, plot and the killer twist,  a social comedy, as new technology of self-driving cars brings unease. Are they safe without a human at the wheel.

Everything was fine until the CEO of a rival manufacturer, victim of cut throat corporate shenanigans that bankrupted him, introduces software into the Arrivals’ AI which turns them into well-organised killing machines.

“Wendy was clipping along the Pacific Coast Highway, arguing with her mother over the Bluetooth about when she would have time to come to Detroit and see her father before he died”. She’d had been following this car for nearly five miles now, heading back to her home in Santa Cruz after a business meeting in Pismo Beach. There had been a truck rollover in the northbound lanes of the freeway – Wendy got advance warning on her Google Traffic app – and so she had exited before the flow of cars turned into a standstill, and headed for the coastal road.”

With just a voice command, an Arrival will take you where you want to go, and as the cars are all aware of each other, road accidents should be a thing of the past. As the world’s press arrives for a glimpse of this driverless future, islander and single mom Sandra Montrose preps for the huge media event. She’s ready for this new world.  Her husband died when he fell asleep at the wheel, and she’s relieved  her two teens, Archie and Kate, may never need driver’s licenses.

But as the day gets underway, there are signs all is not well, as a member of the press has vanished. There are rumours of industrial sabotage. Before long, the sleek driverless cars are no longer taking orders. They’re starting to organize. They’re starting to hunt. And they’ve got the residents of Garrett Island in their sights.

Look Both Ways by Linwood Barclay HQ £20