The Olympics and me…in with the new by Abi Silver

As the Tokyo Olympics draws to a close, I can only reflect on how, quite apart from entertaining me every evening between 7.30 and 9, it’s provided much food for thought where my writing is concerned.

First, members of a fictional Olympic Committee feature in my latest book, The Midas Game. They’re mulling over whether to include online gaming (or ‘Esports’ to give it its shiny, new and more respectable title) in future Olympic Games. And their decision has to be taken against the background of the trial of a young celebrity gamer, JD Dodds, accused of raping and murdering Dr Liz Sullivan, a psychiatrist who treated patients with severe addiction to online gaming.

Of course, I didn’t pluck my idea from the air. Esports is striving to achieve legitimacy in the real world and it certainly has oodles of supporters. Its tournaments, with their million dollar rewards, already attract enormous audiences and, although the Olympic Committee has refused to give it the nod, so far, that hasn’t stopped its inclusion in the 2022 Asian Olympics or a half-way house ‘Virtual Olympic Series’ having taken place earlier this year. 

One of the hurdles gaming has to overcome (and this, I believe, is where chess failed, despite valiant efforts) is that the Olympics is all about achieving excellence in sport and (excuse the pedantry) a sport, in my book, must involve physical exertion, in addition to skill. It’s no coincidence then that David Beckham (and other sports personalities) have been welcomed in, to share their expertise and set up gaming academies, where players’ regimes include physical training to prepare them for the stamina required for competitive gaming. 

But the parallels with the Olympic Games run much deeper than the plot of my most recent offering. The five new sports introduced this year; skateboarding, surfing, climbing, softball/baseball and karate have been largely well received. Their inclusion came after much lobbying and a nail-biting decision made in Rio in 2016, with the aim of bringing the Games to a younger generation and generally broadening its appeal. 

Of course, many sports have been eased out over the years; rope climbing, poodle clipping (a ‘test event’ in 1900 Paris), fire-fighting, live pigeon shooting and tug of war, to name but a few. In this sense, at least, the Games holds a mirror up to the old adage – out with the old, in with the new.

This is also the thread linking my Burton & Lamb stories; courtroom dramas based on topical, controversial themes; lie detecting software, robots dispensing medicine, driverless cars, cameras in our courts and now, the thrills and spills of online gaming. Why follow old-fashioned tried and tested processes, when a faster, slicker way of doing things is available? Even if it might involve the odd sacrificial lamb along the way.

Then there was the BBC’s choice of presenters for its Olympic coverage this time around; the facts at her fingertips, highly experienced Clare Balding and enthusiastic, relative newbie Alex Scott. What a sublime pairing! When Alex described the skateboarding action as ‘sick’ and announced ‘let’s get down with the kids’ and Clare replied ‘I don’t know that means’ I knew I had found two perfect candidates to play the roles of Judith and Constance (my equal but opposite legal eagles and main protagonists) in a future TV series. 

And last but not least, the evolution of the Olympic Games is a neat metaphor for the crime fiction genre as a whole. Just like the Olympics, it’s moved with the times, maintaining and developing the traditional police procedural/detective yarns we grew up on, and adding in spy novels, domestic noir, cosies, unreliable narrators and psychological thrillers, political and technology-based stories and more period, historical crime. And those solving the crimes now come from a range of backgrounds: police, private investigators, secret services, lawyers, forensic pathologists, journalists, amateur sleuths and savvy members of the public. Certainly in crime fiction, this expansion is welcome and has made it the best selling fiction genre of recent years, helping to raise the bar on the quality of writing to truly Olympic Record heights. I have no doubt that the inevitable inclusion of Esports in future Games will make it more popular. Whether it will allow the Games to sustain the level of excellence it strives to stand for, is yet to be seen.

Abi’s latest novel, The Midas Game, is published by Eye and Lightning Books in paperback original on 5 August, available to purchase from Eye-Books and Amazon.

When eminent psychiatrist Dr Liz Sullivan is found dead in her bed, suspicion falls on local gamer and YouTube celebrity Jaden 'JD' Dodds. Did he target her because of her anti-gaming views and the work she undertook to expose the dangers of playing online games? And what was her connection with Valiant, an independent game manufacturer about to hit the big time, and its volatile boss? Judith Burton and Constance Lamb team up once more to defend JD when no one else is on his side. But just because he makes a living killing people on screen doesn't mean he'd do it in real life. Or does it?

More about Abi and her writing can be found on her website. you can also find her on Facebook and on Twitter @abisilver16

Justice for all – cutting out (not on) the bias?

“I’ve been in prison for 15 years for something I didn’t do, for something which I knew nothing about.”  Those were the words of Gerry Conlon on his release from prison in 1989.  He and his family and friends were wrongfully convicted of the 1974 Guildford pub bombing, the trial judge, Mr Justice Donaldson, having told them during sentencing “if hanging were still an option you would have been executed.”

Many of us will have seen the 1993 film “In the Name of the Father” in which Daniel Day-Lewis (who happens to be my favourite actor) portrayed Gerry Conlon, to universal acclaim.  And it is generally accepted now that the Guildford Four’s convictions were obtained as a result of a combination of police brutality fuelled by prejudice, hidden alibi evidence, forensic mistakes by experts and the pervading public sentiment of the time. 

In The Pinocchio Brief, a 15-year-old gifted student, Raymond Maynard, is accused of the vicious killing of his teacher and the press is quick to quote other pupils who describe him as “a loner and a bit weird”.  Judith Burton, an experienced criminal barrister, and Constance Lamb, a young and highly principled solicitor are appointed to defend him.  At Raymond’s trial new computer software, called Pinocchio, is to be piloted, which will analyse every movement of Raymond’s face to determine if his testimony is true or not.  As Dr Winter, Pinocchio’s promoter, explains “every word [will be] assessed for truthfulness, every lie exposed.”

Whilst Judith should (perhaps) be pleased that the media’s pre-judging of her client will consequently have little influence at his trial, she is vehemently opposed to Pinocchio judging Raymond and protests to Constance that “machines make mistakes, especially if they’ve not been tested thoroughly.”  But, as Constance is keen to remind her “people make mistakes” too. 

A 2014 study by Samuel Gross, a professor at the University of Michigan law school, concluded that 4.1% of people sentenced to death in the USA may have been wrongly convicted.  The study did not assess any of the cases individually but analysed the numbers of convicts who had been exonerated either whilst on Death Row or later.  If these figures are accurate then as many as 340 people have been put to death in the USA since 1973, for crimes they did not commit.

When these cases are exposed (think Colin Stagg, Barry George or Sally Clark to name but a few other high-profile UK cases) communities naturally soul search and examine whether there is (or should be) a safer system for judging crime, one in which mistakes are eliminated and every case is judged objectively and fairly; using a sophisticated machine appears, at first blush, to be the answer.

Machines are understandably lauded as cold, logical and neutral.  But surprisingly, even machines can exhibit bias.   This is usually the result of the way the computer algorithms, which underpin the product, have been written in the first place.  LinkedIn apparently offers a larger proportion of higher paid jobs to men than women.  And, with potentially more serious consequences, sentencing tools in the USA have been censured because of the bias they exhibit in assessing the likelihood of people reoffending.  In both cases, a lack of diversity in those writing the algorithms probably contributed to their limitations. 

Transparency in how the software reaches its “decision” goes some of the way to addressing this issue; something which Judith, despite her limited knowledge of the technicalities of Pinocchio, understands instinctively.   But Judith herself may not have entirely altruistic motives behind her opposition to Pinocchio.   And she’s certainly not telling the whole truth when she pleads with the Judge to reject Pinocchio at Raymond’s trial.

Abi Silver’s novel The Pinocchio Brief is published by Lightning Books, price ~£8.99 paperback original.