A Philosophical Investigation by Philip Kerr (Author)

A woman is found dead, raped and covered obscene graffiti. This is unremarkable; London is a world of elaborate technology, violence and squalor, and serial murder has reached epidemic proportions. A new killer emerges, however, who has other targets, ones which have alarming consequences for the government. Chief Inspector ‘Jake’ Jakowicz is put in charge of the investigation, which will require all her powers of reason and intuition. There has been a breach in the security of the Lombroso computer system, which screens people for their predisposition to violent criminality. Aided by Chung, a computer expert, and Dr Jameson Lang, Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University, Jake begins to build a profile of a criminal mind that has adopted the name (and the thought processes) of one of the world’s greatest thinkers. In an age where faith is lost and reality is mutable, logic has become the killers driving force. His voice emerges: sharp, engaging and dismayingly rational. ‘The concept of killing: the assertion of one’s own being by the denial of another. Self-creation by annihilation.’ His name is ‘Wittgenstein’. A chilling philosophical dialogue ensues between Jake and the murderer, where concepts of meaning, logic, and of consciousness are endowed with the importance of life and death. A Philosophical Investigation is a powerfully gripping and thought-provoking thriller which takes the reader on a terrifying journey into the head of a serial killer, and to the heart of murder itself.