Sleep No More: A Suspense Thriller

by Greg Iles

Book Overview

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Penn Cage series explores the dangers of obsession in this gripping psychological thriller. John Waters is a successful businessman and a happy family man--but his life comes crashing down around him with one word from a beautiful stranger: "Soon." Suddenly, he is face to face with a memory from his past--of an obsession that he thought he had escaped. One that now plunges him into the darkest side of...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451208765
• ISBN13: 9780451208767
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Berkley Books
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 4.3" x 7.6"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Off in a different direction

This was a logic stretching departure from the usual Penn Cage novels. Nice ending, and a page-turner as usual. Mr Iles is an incredible wordsmith

Sleep with the lights on

Petroleum geologist John Waters' life is far from perfect at the outset of Greg Iles' thriller Sleep No More. Waters' wife has been depressed for several years, following two miscarriages, and his otherwise successful oil-drilling business is under investigation by the EPA and is threatened besides by the irresponsible personal behavior of his business partner and life-long friend Cole Smith. Potentially devastating though these difficulties are, however, they will seem insignificant to Waters two weeks later, after he has been tempted into the first affair of his marriage by an aggressive seductress, real estate agent Eve Sumner. Sumner, as it turns out, is not your average cleavage-baring predator. She is willing to do anything necessary to wrest Waters from his wife, and she is armed with a peculiarly effective bait: intimate knowledge of Waters' relationship with his college sweetheart, the sexually aggressive, frighteningly possessive--and verifiably deceased--Mallory Candler. Waters' descent into infidelity leads him to question his sense of reality. Is he mad to consider transmigration of the soul as an explanation for Eve's uncanny likeness to and knowledge of Mallory? Or is Sumner part of a convoluted plot designed to unhinge our hero? The characters of Iles' Sleep No More inhabit the same world the author described in his novel The Quiet Game--Natchez, Mississippi, which Iles, a real-life inhabitant of the town, describes eloquently. And it is peopled by some of the same characters: Penn Cage, the protagonist of Iles' earlier novel, takes on a supporting role here. One need not be familiar with The Quiet Game, however, to enjoy the author's more recent effort. But enjoy it you will. After a relatively unhurried introduction, readers will find themselves, perhaps a third of the way through the book, willing the likeable Waters to somehow extricate himself from a relationship that threatens to destroy him. But saving himself and his family, we understand, cannot be a simple business. While Iles' novel ends perhaps a bit too conveniently, it is otherwise well-written, and it is genuinely gripping. Sleep No More is just the thing to keep readers from resting in peace themselves. Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece

Entering King and Koontz Territory

Greg Iles shows his growth and versatility as a fiction writer by creating an absorbing psychological thriller that quickly hooks the reader and doesn't let go until the controversial yet sanguine conclusion.John Waters, a financially successful self-employed geologist in the oil business is a tormented man. Even though he is happily married with a lovable, precocious daughter, Waters is haunted by a relationship that he ended many years previous. When he becomes attracted to a mysterious woman who claims to be his nefarious lover from the past, he begins a journey that ultimately challenges his sanity.Eve Summer is a young and beautiful vixen who displays many of the mannerisms and voices many of the intimate phrases that only he and Mallory Candler, his lover from the past, shared. Once Waters submits to temptation and has sex with Eve, his past comes rushing back to haunt him. It appears to him as though Mallory has returned but he cannot explain to himself how she can possibly be real. Therein lies the heart of the story. Who is this person who appears to have returned from the dead? how did she do it? and what does she want? Since there is so much we are learning about the mind and so much we don't know and can only theorize and speculate upon, the story is possible. Even though it strains the limits of comprehension, SLEEP NO MORE is so well written it opens up the imagination and entertains the reader to the end. To say any more about the specifics would ruin the experience of reading this though-provoking thriller. It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for those readers of suspense looking for something different.

Different, but still excellent.

In the forward to this book, Greg Iles comments that he has written many types of books and thanks his fans for allowing him to do so. Sleep No More is a completely different book than all of his others yet it is similar in many ways. This book contains many elements that were found in the Quiet Game and Mortal Fear.The main character John Waters has a seemingly happy life with a wife and a littel girl. Eve Summers enters his life uttering phrases and doing things that an old lover named Mallory Candler used to do, and Mallory has been dead for 10 years. Waters' relationship with Mallory is very much alive and plays a huge role in the novel. Making sense of tragic secrets of the past is the only way John Waters can survive the present.Sleep No More is totally different novel for Iles because it has a supernatural element. I'm sure that's why Stephen King was given two quotes on the covers praising the book. Iles is a good enough writer that he doesn't have to compare his work to anyone, yet when combining genres, it helps to have the support of someone like Stephen King.If you can except that what Iles proposes can actually happen, then you'll be captivated by this novel. Everything else about this novel is excellent. Suspense, sex, violence, drama, betrayal. Its all there. Iles definitely is improving as a writer and I hope he continues to try different types of novels.

Creepy, Suspenseful...A MUST read!

John Waters is a man happy with his life. He has a loving wife, a young daughter, a successful business, and all the pleasures he could want living in Mississippi, but underneath this surface is a dark past, a past that has caught up with him.Many years earlier John was in a relationship with Mallory Candler, a relationship that started off good, but quickly turned to obsession. John barely escaped the relationship with his sanity still intact, and soon after he met Lily.Mallory disappeared soon after John married Lily, and shortly after that John found out she was killed in New Orleans. Now, many years later a woman has entered his life, one that hides many secrets from the past.Eve Sumner enters John's life and within seconds she is mouthing words that John has long forgotten, and after their face to face meeting John realizes Eve has a connection to his past, but before he can find the connection a brutal act of violence will pull him into a maze of lies, love, friendship, and the realization of how far someone will go when passion turns to obsession.`Sleep No More' will definitely have you lose sleep turning the pages to discover the outcome in it's twisted plot. The first fifty pages start slow, but chapter five exposes the books first shock, and then it hurtles forward with twists and turns, more shocks, and more plot twists. A creepy plot of obsessive love, a shady cast of characters, and the small town setting sets the stage for this UP-ALL-NIGHT page-turner that will have readers wondering if they really know their loved ones. This is one creepy, suspenseful thriller!Greg Iles has been changing his thrillers with each new book, where many authors pick a genre and theme and stick to it, Mr. Iles changes them, successfully! There's no doubt that `Sleep No More' is headed for the top of the bestseller lists, and it's my pick for top-notch beach reading.A MUST read!Nick Gonnella

A Spooky, Strange, and Excellent Thriller

Ever since I read The Quiet Game, I've thought that Greg Iles was entitled to much more recognition. He is better than most of the more popular bestselling writers that readers see today. His prose and storytelling are some of the absolute best that I've ever read. After reading the book description for Sleep No More, I was ambivalent about it. I wasn't sure if I liked the idea of reading a thriller involving the soul transfer and its accompanying metaphysics. However, after reading the novel, I can honestly say that I will read anything that Iles chooses to write about.John Waters is a geologist searching for oil in Nanchez, Mississippi. His wife is suffering from depression resulting from the loss of two pregnancies and as a result, the couple's sex life is nearly non-existant. This makes Waters susceptable to the charms of a woman who, at first, reminds him of his former lover, Mallory, who died nine years earlier. He soon comes to realize that this woman is much more than she seems to be and his affair jeopardizes not only his marriage, but the lives of his wife and daughter.As I said earlier, I was uncomfortable at first with the idea of the transference of the soul that is the epicenter of this book. However, these fears were quickly put to rest thanks to Iles ability to weave an intricate, effective story. By the time the book really gets moving, readers will find themselves ready to believe anything that Iles asks them to believe. His characters are well developed and readers will relate to them, especially Cole and Waters himself. If the reader allows some suspension of reality and allows Iles to take them along for the ride, I really can't think of a person who would not love this book for the excellent thriller that it is...