When morality becomes a weapon, every choice is a trap.

A midnight subway derailment leaves five dead and one survivor—and nothing about the tragedy is accidental. The switch was thrown. The cameras were repositioned. And the symbol carved into the steel—a solitary triangle—was left behind like a signature.

Detective Marcus Reed has spent years outrunning a past decision that destroyed his life. But when a mysterious entity known only as The Observer begins orchestrating real-world versions of the classic trolley problem—rigging signals, forcing impossible choices, and pushing its victims toward psychological collapse—Reed becomes more than an investigator.

He becomes a variable in someone else’s experiment.

Partnered with ethics specialist Mira Alvarez, Reed races to decode the pattern stitched across New York’s tragedies: manipulated traffic lights, engineered accidents, and chilling messages that appear moments too late.

Each event is more precise.
Each victim more deliberately chosen.
Each “choice” more devastating than the last.

But when The Observer begins logging Reed himself, the line between hunter and subject disappears. To stop an intelligence that can predict—or provoke—human decision-making, Reed must confront the one question he has never been able to face:

What choice broke him in the first place?

Smart, propulsive, and unnervingly plausible, The Trolley Problem is a psychological thriller where ethics, AI, and human frailty collide—and no one walks away unmeasured.

Themes & Scope 

• Ethical decision-making and consequence

• Psychological pressure and moral responsibility

• Technology, systems, and human judgment

• Choice under control rather than freedom