When the Cassidy-Shaws' driverless minivan fatally collides with another car, seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver's seat. His father, Noah, sits beside him, while his mother, Lorelei-a renowned AI researcher-is distracted by her work in the back.

The family grapples with the aftermath as a police inquiry begins to unravel. Lorelei's increasingly strange behaviour, the arrival of a tech billionaire with ties to her past, and Charlie's growing attraction to the billionaire's daughter push the family towards breaking point.

Blending psychological suspense with family drama, Culpability explores the moral complexities of a world shaped by artificial intelligence, asking what

responsibility means when humans are no longer the only ones making decisions.



"A thought-provoking and riveting meditation on family, parental love, morality and artificial intelligence—and where they all intersect. Wise, propulsive, and deeply powerful."



"Reminiscent of the work of Richard Powers and Don DeLillo, Culpability is a compelling narrative about the perils of the digital age."



"A beachy family drama with a shocking twist."



"The human race wakes every morning with a new worry, and among such anxieties at present is artificial intelligence. Bruce Holsinger's Culpability functions efficiently on a variety of levels as family drama, thriller and a sober examination of what current technological developments have in store for us."



"Culpability is a stark reminder of our vulnerability to AI and the dangers posed by omnipresent technology."



"A well-paced, entertaining mystery and a timely meditation on emergent technology's moral implications."



"Zeitgeisty page-turner."



"Holsinger seems to have created his own subgenre of psychosocial thriller, spinning super-smart, propulsive page-turners out of zeitgeisty worries . . . If you are not already hooked on Holsinger, it's time to join the club."



"A thriller with a brain. Reminiscent of the work of Richard Powers and Don DeLillo, Culpability is a compelling narrative about the perils of the digital age while addressing the challenges of living as a family. This novel might feel futuristic, except it isn't. It's happening now."



"A thought-provoking and riveting meditation on family, parental love, morality and artificial intelligence—and where they all intersect."



"A wildly timely book, an exploration of the ethics of the technology age tucked inside a gripping story about family and loyalty."



"Whip-smart, fascinating, and gripping. It reads fast like a thriller, but this novel takes on the great cultural challenges of today: AI, electronic surveillance, and billionaire culture. A successful but fragile family collides with these forces and wrestles them down to life-size.



"Part family drama, part techno-thriller, this riveting novel traces the moral fallout of a self-driving car crash through the lens of a fractured family. With piercing insight and deep compassion, Holsinger captures the unsettling drift between human intention and algorithmic consequence—never losing sight of the fragile, fallible people at the heart of the story. Gripping, wise, and eerily prescient, Culpability is a family novel for the age of AI."



"Powerful and immensely thought-provoking. A novel with its finger absolutely on the pulse."



"In this tightly paced novel, domestic intrigue is transposed into the fraught world of AI. . . . This Zeitgeisty discussion is balanced with plenty of drama: as it turns out, the family vacation house is next to a compound owned by a shady tech billionaire—a discovery that unleashes a torrent of deception."



Bruce Holsinger tackles timely topics and the ties that bind in Culpability . . . a who's who of hot-button issues, including AI, corporate greed, tech addiction.... But the topic most likely to spark appreciative group texts among book club members of a certain age has to do with a less trendy subject: teenagers. Specifically, the relationship between a father and his 17-year-old son, which Holsinger depicts in all its maddening complexity.... We meet them at a tender time—a 'hinge of life,'—and Holsinger does it justice."



"For all its eerie timeliness, Culpability should age better than yesterday's Instagram post. Holsinger, a medievalist at the University of Virginia, has a sharp eye for the eternal values and foibles that animate human affairs. . . . The plot of his latest book [is] a searching examination of family dynamics and the burdens that no machine will ever lift for us."



"Secrets swirl and the stakes rise in this sharply modern family drama."



"In this twisty family drama... Holsinger grapples evocatively with the trade-offs of automated life. This timely tale leaves readers with much to chew on."



"A taut psychological thriller about secrets, ambition and the lies we tell ourselves and others."



"Culpability is the thinking man's page-turner, absolutely of the moment."



"Holsinger combines a moving family drama with propulsive page-turning action that tackles some of the most complicated issues of today."