Drone State - Tom Hillenbrand

Glauser Award 2015 – Best German Crime Novel

Lasswitz Award 2015 – Best German SF Novel

Why interview witnesses when all their movements and conversations have already been archived on a hard disk? Why investigate crime scenes when police drones have already photographed them from all possible angles?

A Brussels MP is found murdered near the EU capital. At first, detective Aart van der Westerhuizen is confident he can solve the case quickly using Europol‘s near-omniscient police computer TEREISIAS. But then he realizes the digital evidence may have been tampered with. Soon Aart becomes embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens to shake Europe to its core.

Praise for „Drone State“:

A sweeping thriller about our future in the surveillance state . . . since Orwell has aged a little, it was high time for a novel like this.  - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

The scariest thing about this gripping detective story is how plausible the future presented in it seems.
- Technology Review

Brillant and fast-paced, “Drone State” is a treasure trove of imagination, chock-full of futuristic high-tech ideas.
- Les Inrockuptibles