Book Review: Sleep No More

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Sleep No More     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Greg Iles
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Psychological Suspense
Putnam, July 2002, $24.95, 384 pp.

John Waters is a geologist living with his wife Lily and his seven- year-old daughter Annelise in his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi. He is reasonably contented with his lot in life until Eve Sumner comes into his sphere and changes everything he believed in. The first time he sees her, she mouths the word "soon" to him, something his obsessive dead lover used to do.

When Eve and Waters are alone for the first time, she tries to convince him that she is Mallory Gray Candler, his college sweetheart who developed a fatal attraction for him. Eve tells him things that only Mallory can know and she explains her knowledge by stating that her soul transmigrated into many bodies, her soul purpose to dominate the host’s personality. Eventually, they begin a torrid affair one that ends when Waters, at the peak of his climax, blacks out. When he come to, Eve is dead, marks of strangulation around her neck. His friend offers him an alibi while his lawyer tells him somebody is trying to set him up, but he knows the truth is out there somewhere smack in the middle of the supernatural.

Greg Isles is a versatile multi-talented author, who has a unique voice and never writes about the same thing twice. Against the background of an illicit love affair and a murder investigation, the author forces the reader to question the concepts of life, death and the soul. The results are a chilling paranormal thriller that will be put on this reviewer’s keeper shelf.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner