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Claudia Befu's avatar

Very good pacing, I’m looking forward to the next part.

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Alexander Ipfelkofer's avatar

Thanks, Claudia. Elodie has a lot of work and hard cases... let's see how it goes!

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Claudia Befu's avatar

Good luck to Elodie with her cases 😉!

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Alexander Ipfelkofer's avatar

She's going to need it! :D

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Claudia Befu's avatar

Fun fact, my husband had two French colleagues called Elodie in the same company in Munich.

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Alexander Ipfelkofer's avatar

Elodie is a popular name, I had a few colleagues called Elodie, some called Dubois but not both, also her full name is D. E. D. Daphne Elodie Dubois. Big D da house! ;) Have to write up a character background methinks.

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Claudia Befu's avatar

D.E.D? Leave to Alexander to come up with a cool acronym. 👏

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Nathan Slake's avatar

Très bien!!

A lot going on here. I'll admit I had to read it twice to catch all of the details. Intrigued by this line:

"The accident interfered with his timeline."

Feels like there's a sense of predestination to this, or maybe I'm reading to much into it. Regardless, I like it a lot. The pacing, as Claudia notes, is great, there's some great descriptive phrases, especially that opening paragraph! Really sets the scene. Wasn't expecting the more futuristic-ness when the holoband popped into play, but I'm down with it :)

Looking forward to how this all unfolds!

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Alexander Ipfelkofer's avatar

Thanks, Nathan. A little excursion into tales of ratiocination. Let's see how Elodie will fare. She has a smart assistant, so what can go wrong?

Ah, yes. Elodie has been profiling her suspect ever since poor Timmy died (Black Ice, Origin Story/Prologue) all those years ago. Something definitely is afoot!

I will need to honker down and get my police vocabulary up to speed. STAT.

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Nathan Slake's avatar

Ah, of course of course, I forgot she was explicitly named in that piece. Very good, very good.

10-4.

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Kathleen Clare Waller's avatar

So intrigued. I love a detective story.

Also, that bicycle paragraph!! Incredible. Really cleverly done, Alexander. You often have a nice way of setting up the atmosphere and then diving into some compelling dialogue.

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Alexander Ipfelkofer's avatar

Glad you found it intriguing! A prerequisite for this genre (or any). Ah yes, that bike, I wondered how far I can push it, there's a whole backstory as to how it ended up that way, too. Dee may have to investigate further, to get the full picture.

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Kathleen Clare Waller's avatar

Yes please 🙋🏼‍♀️

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Sharron Bassano's avatar

I didn't read Black Ice, but I am in, Alexander. I love it when a story gets right down to business in the first paragraph. No fooling around! Nice to have a bit of French thrown into the mix and the new bits of technology.

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Alexander Ipfelkofer's avatar

Thanks, Sharron. AI is fighting crime as we speak, so why not make Watson digital? Thanks for joining the ride! Dee wanted to become a detective since she was a child, esp. after what happened at that pond.

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Sharron Bassano's avatar

Nice hook.

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