''Les Racines du mal'' (''The Roots Of Evil'') is a 1995 crime novel by the French writer Maurice G. Dantec. Set in the near future, it tells the story of a

knowledge engineer A knowledge engineer is a professional engaged in the science of building advanced logic into computer systems in order to try to simulate human decision-making and high-level cognitive tasks. A knowledge engineer supplies some or all of the "know ...

who is brought in by the police to find a group of serial killers. He is assisted by the "neuromatrice", an

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

he helped develop, which can access any computer system and create psychological profiles based on scattered hints and facts about a person. The novel was published on 21 April 1995 by

Éditions Gallimard Éditions Gallimard (), formerly Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue Française (1911–1919) and Librairie Gallimard (1919–1961), is one of the leading French book publishers. In 2003 it and its subsidiaries published 1,418 titles. Founded by Ga ...

, as part of the

Série noire ''Série noire'' is a French publishing imprint, founded in 1945 by Marcel Duhamel. It has released a collection of crime fiction of the hardboiled detective thrillers variety published by Gallimard. Anglo-American literature forms the bulk of ...

imprint. It received the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire and the

Prix Rosny-Aîné The Prix Rosny-Aîné is a literary prize for French science fiction. It has been awarded annually since 1980 in two categories: best novel and best short fiction. Best Novel Winners *1980 : Michel Jeury, for ''Le territoire humain'' *1981 : M ...

References

External links

Publicity page
at

's website {{DEFAULTSORT:Racines du mal 1995 science fiction novels 1995 Canadian novels 1995 French novels Novels about artificial intelligence French crime novels French science fiction novels French-language novels Novels by Maurice G. Dantec Éditions Gallimard books