Culpability by Bruce Holsinger
Published by Spiegel & Grau
Publication date: July 8, 2025
Genres: Book Clubs, Fiction, Contemporary, Suspense, Vacation Reading
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When Culpability begins the Cassidy-Shaws are heading to one of their children’s sports tournaments when their minivan is hit by another car veering into their lane, resulting in two fatalities. The car is self-driving with the son, Charlie, at the wheel. His father, Noah, an attorney, is next to him while his mother, Lorelei, and two younger sisters are in the backseats. There are injuries among them, but as this timely tale unfolds the deepest cuts and fractures will come from within.
A self-driving car is fodder enough for suspense, but in the hands of author Bruce Holsinger it is just the first ingredient in the complex stew that is Culpability. There are the human factors: Charlie doesn’t have his license yet, Noah was immersed in work on his laptop, and the siblings were engaged in a petty war of online bickering.
Page by page, Holsinger lets things simmer, layering in a billionaire neighbor at the vacation rental the family retreats to after the accident. Who Lorelei seems to know and with whom the drama later increases. The discord, secrets, and family dynamics, all understandable to a degree, when combined with the complexities of technology, thicken the plot until it boils over.
Holsinger is a master at presenting seesawing perspectives. For every artificial intelligence detail that furthers the belief machines will ultimately kill us there is another pointing out their inability to do so without human interference. This is not to say that Culpability is reassuring reading. It is a gripping novel right up until the last page (skip the epilogue) that also happens to be incisive in its questions about the precipice of moral and ethical implications we balance on with technology.
For more of Bruce Holsinger’s salient takes on social issues I recommend his novels The Displacements and The Gifted School.
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*I received a free copy of this book from Spiegel & Grau in exchange for an honest review.*
You make it sound pretty good — though I’m not totally sold yet on a story of an AI car & accident … I finished his last book The Displacements — it seemed a bit uneven — maybe 3.5 stars. Yet Oprah picked this new one for her book club? Hmm it must be better.
There’s a bit of overkill in this one as well, but so much to think about. Especially as AI seems to be dominating more and more of the tech world conversation.