Today’s AI has become very sophisticated. For instance, there are now AI apps that can mimic a real person’s voice. They’re being used in some cases to scam people (e.g., ‘Hi, Mom, it’s me – can you send me money? I’m in real trouble’). Other apps can write essays and do a lot more. And of course, online avatars can look like whatever a person wants, so it’s very hard to tell who’s on the other side. It’s scary if you think about it. And as a quick look at crime fiction shows, not knowing can be very dangerous.

Even before modern AI technology, people misrepresented themselves. For instance, in Agatha Christie’s The Man in the Brown Suit, Anne Bedingfield decides on impulse to take a trip on the HMS Kilmorden Castle, destination Cape Town. Along the way, she gets involved in a very dangerous web of intrigue, stolen jewels, and murder. She also meets a man named Harry Rayburn, who has his own secrets. After the ship docks at Cape Town, Anne receives a note from Harry, asking her to meet him. She goes, only to find that it was a ruse to abduct her. She manages to escape, but she’s left badly injured. Harry finds her and nurses her. The two fall in love, and they agree to a code word they’ll use in any future notes. It doesn’t keep them completely out of trouble, but at least it’ll be a sign that the note is bona fide.

The real action in C.J. Box’s Below Zero begins when Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett’s teenaged daughter Sheridan receives an eerie text:

From: AK Sherry, is this U? I got your # from a dude named Jason at the old house. U R not gonna believe who this is. Reply by txt but DON’T CALL. DO NOT CALL

The sender seems to be her adopted sister April, but that’s the problem: April was killed six years earlier. So, the sender could very well not be April at all. If the sender isn’t April, then someone has co-opted her identity to get to Sheridan. That in itself is dangerous. But if the sender actually is April, then she could be in grave danger, and Pickett can’t let that possibility go. So, he decides to find out who really sent that text. And that could cause plenty of danger of its own.

Cat Connor’s Killerbyte introduces Ellie Conway (later Iverson). She’s an ex-pat New Zealander who’s an FBI special agent. She is also a poet who co-moderates an online chat forum called Cobwebs. One day, Ellie has to bar one of the members of the community; he’s understandably furious with her and later finds his way to her home, where he threatens her. He’s arrested, but he makes bail. Later, he’s murdered, and his body is found in the trunk of Ellie’s car. There’s a poem near his body that suggests that someone in the poetry group might be responsible. The question is, of course, who?  Then, another member of the group is murdered; again, a poem is found near the body. Now, Ellie and her partner Mac have to find out which group member is hiding a murderous identity before they become victims themselves. 

Sinéad Crowley’s Can Anybody Help Me? is the story of Yvonne Mulhern, who’s recently moved from London to Dublin, so that her husband Gerry can take advantage of a good job offer. With them, they’ve brought their infant daughter. As a first-time mother, Yvonne is stressed and exhausted. It doesn’t help much that she doesn’t really know anyone in Dublin. Then, she discovers an online support group called Netmammy. The members welcome Yvonne, and she gradually becomes friends with them, even though they’ve never met. When one of the members goes ‘off the grid,’ Yvonne becomes concerned. She tries to get the police involved, but there’s not much they can do without evidence of a crime. When the body of an unidentified woman is discovered in an empty apartment, there’s a possibility it might be Yvonne’s missing friend.  If it is, then someone in Netmammy is a killer hiding behind a friendly online presence…

There’s a really interesting case of not knowing who’s behind an identity in Janice MacDonald’s Another Margaret. Miranda ‘Randy’ Craig is a sessional lecturer who works mostly in Edmonton. Randy hears from a friend that a new book, Seven Bird Saga, will soon be published. The author, Margaret Ahlers, is a notoriously reclusive writer whose work Randy studied for her master’s thesis. That’s how Randy knows that Margaret Ahlers died several years ago, and that Seven Bird Saga is very likely not her work. If it’s not, then the question is, who wrote the new book?  Was it ‘cribbed’ from Ahler’s notes? Was the book entirely written by someone else? In order to find the answers, Randy returns to the work she did for her degree, and slowly puts the pieces together. But what she doesn’t know is how dangerous it can be to unmask someone…

It’s easier than we like to think to pretend to be someone else online. Some people completely invent fictional ‘selves.’ And they use identity faking for all sorts of purposes. It’s a sobering, even frightening reality in life, but it can add an interesting layer in crime fiction.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Steve Perry’s Oh,Sherrie.