Sleep No More: A Suspense Thriller

This is the first Greg Iles book I really disliked.
I kept waiting for a believable resolution to the whole
Mallory thing and it never came. It SHOULD be listed as a
supernatural or ghost story, NOT a suspense novel.
It was also not very well written.
I loved Mortal Fear and The Quiet Game, but this was awful.

Probably the most captivating writer I've read. I'm reading all the Mississippi books, I'm on the last one now. Never boring, never predictable. I have one objection, the use of God's name in vein...I skip over the multiple uses, and it's not necessary.

In Sleep No More, Greg Iles writes about John Waters, a geologist who heads a successful oil drilling business, a happy family man, and a straight arrow citizen, who, while leaving his daughter's soccer game, notices a beautiful woman who mouths to him the single word "soon." As this paranormal/supernatural thriller unfolds, the woman, Eve Sumner, seduces Waters using information that only he knows about a former lover, Mallory Candler, who has been dead over ten years. For two weeks, Waters is involved in an extramarital affair that becomes an ongoing nightmare worsening by the hour. Waters becomes a suspect in a brutal murder, and is on the verge of losing his family, his business, his best friend and business partner, and his credibility in the community. Waters contemplates suicide, as well as murder, all in the guise of saving his family, who he realizes, albeit too late, is the only thing really important.

While well-written and fast moving, this book is probably not for everyone. Unlike most other Greg Iles novels, the story, theme, and plot of Sleep No More is sexual interaction, and although the chapters don't contain overly graphic sexual scenes, there is more than just a connotation here and there; so much so, that it's sometimes a little difficult to follow the plot. That said, however, the reader is kept in suspense and on the edge from the beginning until the very end of the book. There are dozens of surprising twists and turns, making it a difficult thriller to put down.

Sleep No More is my first exposure to anything written by Greg Iles and, in fairness to him, I want to stress that I experienced the novel in audio book format, not as a printed version. Although the book's narrator did grow on me over the course of the book's ten CDs, his lack of preparation irritated me a number of times. For instance, the man had no idea that Schlumberger is not pronounced to rhyme with hamburger. Schlumberger is a French oil field service company, one of the largest in the world, and to hear its name mispronounced a dozen or so times in quick succession became a major distraction. In addition, several of the book's characters are from Louisiana and, in dealing with them, the narrator managed to mispronounce a city or two from that state and speak in one of the least authentic Cajun accents I have ever heard.

So remember that I am reviewing an audio book here - not simply a Greg Iles novel - and that one point has been deducted from my rating based on the quality of the audio work.

The storyline of Sleep No More is an intriguing one that kept me guessing for a long time whether I was reading a straight crime novel or a Stephen Kingish horror novel. Its principle character is John Waters, who while attending the University of Mississippi had a passionate (and destructive) affair with a young woman who became Miss Mississippi while they were involved. Sadly, just a few years later, Mallory Candler was raped and murdered in New Orleans. Before her death, however, her bizarre behavior almost cost John Waters his life.

Years later, John Waters is married, has a little girl, and is making a good living as a Mississippi oil wildcatter. His is a risky business, but he has been successful more times than not. All is well in John's world until a beautiful young woman approaches him on the soccer field after one of his daughter's matches. The woman, Eve Sumner, leaves John with a knowing look and the same whispered word that he and Mallory exchanged when they wanted to sneak away together. He is spooked by the encounter and cannot stop thinking about it.

Before long, and despite his best intentions, John is involved in a torrid affair with Eve Sumner. As she reveals more and more details that could have only been known by him and Mallory, John begins to believe that Mallory's soul has taken over Eve Sumner's body. Soon, John will be involved in a battle to save more than his marriage - the lives of his wife and daughter are at stake.

Sleep No More is a better mystery than it is a horror novel. Its best moments come when John is trying to determine exactly what is happening to him, whether or not he can trust his partner and best friend, and his fight to stay out of prison. The horror aspect of the novel is not nearly so satisfying, at least in part because of the lack of closure provided by the book's final pages.

Greg Iles fans will have to tell me if this one is representative of his work. If so, I will likely pass on the others.

This is a slightly spooky/supernatural book for Iles. The premise is a murdered lover comes back to haunt Daniel Waters through inhabiting the bodies of others. Unfortunately this murdered lover was a bit unstable and certainly vengeful. She tries to stick Daniel with a murder charge, and as she tries to take over his life, the two wrestle for control. This book is less action and more interaction than some of Iles books. Once again it features Natchez Mississippi as the setting (after so many Iles books, I'm beginning to feel I live there). As with all Iles books, the characters are well developed and realistic....with maybe the exception of the transmigration of souls part. This book can be read separately from Iles' other Natchez books, but characters continue to pop up after they survive their ordeals, and Iles makes vague references to their previous adventures, so... I do recommend reading them in chronological order. My perspective is that Iles is one of the most entertaining writers out there today ( I won't use best...its too subjective). Try one of his books, and I believe you'll start crawling your way through the rest.

Greg Iles has a wonderful way of bringing the Gulf States alive with his intimate descriptions and knowledge of the Louisiana/Mississippi lifestyle. Bravo Mr. Iles for giving this part of the country a modern voice.
'Sleep No More' takes place in Natchez, MS where geologist John Waters, a semi-happily married man lives with his wife and daughter and battles the everyday anxieties and futilities of keeping his oil drilling business afloat. He thinks his two biggest problems are an EPA investigation which may clean him out financially and his womanizing partner and lifelong friend, Cole who is up to his neck in gambling debts and is draining capital from the partnership to sustain his habits. However, when Eve Sumners walks into his life, Waters misjudges the magnitude of his current problems; they seem small when compared to the mess of trouble she brings to his somewhat mellow existence. Somehow, Eve knows all the intimate details of a hot and steamy relationship that began at Ole Miss and eventually went sour; Eve claims she is Water's lost love, a woman who was killed by a rapist ten years earlier. Sickened, yet intrigued, Waters cannot move far enough out of her orbit; eventually he is sucked in and helplessly consummed. But when Eve is found in their trysting place dead, Water's problems multiple like the tribles in the classic Star Trek episode.

Iles builds his totally believable character of Waters expertly; the reader understands his torment, his fascination and his incredulity. Here is a solid citizen asked to believe the unbelievable.

The plot is a bit convoluted in places and Iles does ask you to suspend disbelief and play along with his premise. I must admit there were times I asked myself why I actually was buying the whole thing. Nevertheless, he does tie the whole package up neatly, loose strings and all, but whether or not this is as fundamentally enthralling as 'Mortal Fear' is questionable and a matter of taste. The activity and interplay between the set of characters is so complicated and perverse that overall the read just isnt as satisfying as some of Iles' earlier works. Be that as it may, it still held my attention, is certainly a fast read and recommended even if it is just to experience the modern day Gulf Coast from a writer that really knows and loves his territory.

In Greg Iles's new supernatural thriller, "Sleep No More," John Waters is a geologist and devoted family man who lives in Natchez, Mississippi. John searches for oil wells and he has been fairly successful in the past. He is also a devoted husband and he adores his seven-year-old little girl, Annelise.
John's predictable life is about to change dramatically. A sultry real-estate agent named Eve Sumner moves into town, and she starts paying John a great deal of attention. Much to John's shock, Eve knows all about his sordid secrets, including every intimate detail about the tempestuous and destructive affair that John had with the gorgeous Mallory Candler many years ago. Mallory and John were sexually obsessed with one another. Although Mallory was a beauty queen, crowned "Miss Mississippi," she was never happy. She suffered from serious psychological problems, including pathological and uncontrollable jealousy, and a tendency to become violent when thwarted. John's affair with Mallory ended badly, and both John and Mallory married other people. John is confident that this tragic chapter in his life is over forever.

Suddenly a series of strange events catapults John and his family into a surreal and supernatural world, one in which nothing is at it seems on the surface. His past comes back to haunt him and he fears that he may lose everything that he cares about.

"Sleep No More" has its powerful moments. It is a highly erotic novel, filled with sexual and dramatic tension. Unfortunately, the novel's plot line depends on a huge suspension of disbelief and as the book reaches its melodramatic conclusion, the events in the book become more and more far-fetched. The characters are not particularly well-developed, and "Sleep No More" is more plot-driven than character-driven. It is also reminiscent of other novels with a similar supernatural twist. However, Iles is a competent storyteller and I found myself getting caught up in the characters' myriad problems. I think that most readers will be curious to see how John Waters and his family survive the troubles that suddenly engulf them. "Sleep No More" is a modestly successful thriller. However, it would have been better had the author fleshed out the characters and made the plot a bit more believable.

In a departure from his usual mystery/legal/police thriller, Greg Iles mixes science fiction with a chilling story set in his native Natchez, with some familiar supporting characters. A word of warning--you need to suspend belief and not expect everything to add up, because this is paranormal fiction.
John Waters is a successful geologist oilman who happens to see a woman at a soccer game who reminds him of a former lover. This coincidence is eerie because the woman, Mallory Candler, is dead, strangled and raped years before in New Orleans. He is thrown for a loop when the woman, Eve Sumner, calls him and tells him that she is Mallory. Waters, whose wife has been traumatized by a dead child and unwilling to have sex, succumbs to the siren call of Eve/Mallory and has a torrid two week affair with her. After a night of sex with her in a hotel room, Waters blacks out and awakes to find Eve strangled--just like Mallory.
Waters turns to his old friend Penn Cage, novelist and former DA (and lead character of Iles' Quiet Game, also mentioned in the book) for legal advice. Cage suspects some conspiracy to frame waters and begins to look into his partner, Cole, heavily into gambling debts and his wife Ivy who might blame Waters for the stillbirth.
What other enemies has Waters made? Will the police find out about his secret trysts with Eve and arrest him?
The plot takes you into unsuspected directions, with suspense building all the while.
I am a Greg Iles fan and I only gave this entertaining book three stars because I prefer a more factual/logical plot to the science fiction elements here. While it was chilling, it was not frightening. It was a highly entertaining read that I enjoyed during a day at the beach.

The most wearisome books are those by authors whose previous works you have enjoyed but who for some reason allow standards to slip and such is the case with this work by the usually dependable Greg Iles.
Set in Natchez ,Mississippi its protagonist is John Walters ,a petroleum geologist whose ordered world is not as serene as it might appear to be on the surface.His marriage to the cool and collected Lily is polite but loveless and held together mainly by love for their daughter Annalise ;his business partner is a drunk and a gambler and the company they own is under EPA investigation.
This is as nothing compared to the entry into his life of the realtor Eve Sumner who claims to be host to the spirit of the late Mallory Candler with whom he had shared a passionate affair prior to her suicide some years earlier .They begin an affair and reluctantly he begins to accept the validity of her claims absurd though they appear to his rational mind.Then ,waking up after a night of passion together, he finds Eve dead on the bed beside her.
This is not the end of the problem for not only is he fighting a potential murder rap ,but the spirit of Mallory is still loose and finds new homes-in the bodies of his wife and Cole.
The issue is how -if at all-he can free himself of her trouibled spirit and resume an even tenored life.
The plot is implausible and moves slowly towards an indecisive conclusion that had me sighing in exasperation
Put it down to a minor lapse and hope the authot gets back on track soon

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.

No wonder no less a literary personage than Mr Stephen King, master of the maccabre, himself praised this new novel by Greg Iles. The author has yet again expanded his scope in writing by slightly detouring around his usually thrilling subject matter into a slightly more ethereal world.
Why does the attractive Eve Sumner whisper soon to Oil geologist John Waters at a soccor game? This is a question Waters asked himself at the start of the tale, then spends much effort and sanity trying to convince others of the answer.
Once again Iles turns up the suspense and tension in his latest thriller, while at the same time causing the reader to think and ask some curious questions about what we believe of the afterlife, the nature of true love and sanity. Despite being slightly different from his previous works in tone I think Mr. Iles has maintained the thrill factor very well in this latest offering, and give him credit for having the courage to write a slightly different story than the kind his readers and fans have grown used to. I felt lumps in my throat in parts due to the high level of paranoia he invokes throughout Sleep No More. A very good title for horror fans that may not normally consider reading Iles and for thriller fans that expect more than typical thrills in their fiction.

On the surface, John Waters has it all -- a loving wife, a beautiful child, a successful business -- but appearances are deceiving. His marriage is in trouble, his business is under investigation by a federal agency, and his business partner has made questionable financial decisions which jeopardize everyone's future. Into this mix wanders Eve Sumner, a stunningly attractive woman who makes it abundantly obvious she's chosen Waters as her next conquest. However, appearances are again deceiving, because Eve Sumner claims she is actually Mallory Chandler, Waters' first great love.

Funny thing, though: Mallory Chandler died ten years previously.

So who is this woman? And how does she know things only Mallory should know?

In an effort to discover the truth, Waters finds himself involved in an affair that quickly turns dangerous, as Eve/Mallory displays the same obsessive behavior that destroyed Waters' love for Mallory twenty years before.

This novel requires a major suspension of disbelief for its critical plot device: transmigration of a soul. Once the reader accepts that, however, the story moves along quickly and works well within its preposterous premise. Waters flails and fumbles and does his best to fix the mess he's made by getting involved with Eve/Mallory, even as she seems to be setting him up for a murder charge. His desperation and fear are palpable, and certainly mitigate his at times wrong-headed choices. I truly enjoyed this story, that is, until I read the final pages.

The final plot twist, which I won't reveal here, is so farfetched, even within the confines of a plot that stretches suspension of disbelief to its outermost limit, as to spoil all the good trashiness that preceded it. I read the last few pages and threw the book across the room. I felt cheated. I think Mr. Iles wrote himself into a corner and couldn't think of any other way to give the reader a happy ending. Gah.

Never have I been so disappointed with a novel's resolution.

Oh, and the frequent references to a novel written by a character within this novel which happens to have the same title as a novel written by Iles bugged me too.

Gah.

Oh. Go ahead and read the story. Just rewrite the ending in your own head. I did.

Greg Iles "Sleep No More" gives new meaning to the feeling that we have all had from time to time that we have "been there before." It's tightly written with well turned phrases and a plot that captured my imagintion with great literary images. The setting is a return to "The Quiet Game" with Penn Gage who sees the main character threw a bad time to say the least.
The really bad guy is a girl who has been dead for ten years. The good guy main character is John Waters who would seem to have it all., i.e., a wife he loves, a daughter he adores, a job that challenges him every time he plots the find for a new oil well, and a partner that has been a life long friend.
The day Eve Sumner beckons to him at a cocktail party with a signal straight out of his memory of Malory Chandler, his world as he knew it changes and spins out of control. Enough has been written to "present" Mr. Iles story. Sleep No More is an addictive book that needs to be read from cover to cover quickly to find out where it is going and how the mystery can possibly be resovled. Then it can be reread just to enjoy the writing.
Buy the book!

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

After reading many of the professional critic's reviews, it seems apparent that many of these `professionals' look for logic, veracity and reality in fiction. True, most thrillers and mysteries must possess some quality of believability but beyond that, the author has unabated license to create. For many, the thought of transmigration, or soul transfer, is beyond the boundaries of possibility. Quite frankly, I don't find it plausible or tangibly logical but then, I'm not reading the latest Greg Iles thriller with an eye toward logic. I'm reading Iles because he is quickly mastering the art of `transmigrating' this reader into the storyline with each and every offering, paranormal conundrum or not.
SLEEP NO MORE is Greg Iles latest thriller and it was just that, a thrill. John Waters is a successful geologist living in Natchez, Mississippi with his wife Lily and daughter Annelise. Waters' business partner is long-time friend, Cole Smith, an obsessive personality and extremely self-destructive. The intimacy in Waters' marriage has waned over the years specifically centered around two miscarriages endured by Lily. Waters is a faithful and loving husband and something of a model father. However, as fate would have it, Iles puts these qualities to task.
During his collegiate years, Waters had a stormy love affair with a beautiful albeit bewitching woman, Mallory Candler. This affair tested the boundaries of human frailty, physically and emotionally. In the end, Waters ended the relationship and Mallory disappeared only later to be killed in New Orleans. Waters felt Mallory's untimely death brought an end to a particularly dark chapter in his life.
One day, after coaching his daughter's soccer team to victory, Waters is leaving the field when he casually passes a beautiful woman, a woman that immediately reminds him of Mallory Candler. As he turns to look over his shoulder, she is looking directly at him and mouths the word, "Soon." This sends earthshaking chills through Waters, as this was the exact word he and Mallory would use to express their physical desires in public during those college years. He later finds out that this woman is Eve Sumner, a local real estate broker. As the storyline develops, Eve tempts Waters' honor and the plot immediately becomes whirlwind and tantalizing.
As an aside, if one is an Iles fan from way back, familiar characters reappear from Iles bestseller, THE QUIET GAME, another incredible read. Penn Cage, the lovable attorney-cum-author returns for an encore in SLEEP NO MORE. From a practical point-of-view, this could be a marketing stroke of genius. If a reader is enjoying Iles for the first time in SLEEP NO MORE, the reader might just take a flyer on THE QUIET GAME given its `presence' in SLEEP. It will be interesting to see if there is resurging demand for THE QUIET GAME.
The theory of transmigration, while not new, is one of fiction or, at the very least, an unexplained, unproven phenomenon. Could one person's soul find its way into another and actually `take over' the physical body? Readers will have to solve that puzzle on their own. However, remember that what you are reading is a work of fiction, not a biography or professional text. SLEEP NO MORE is designed to entertain and titillate albeit intellectually; Iles has always written in a somewhat cerebral fashion.
Bottom line....if you're looking for a breathtaking, `edge of your seat' read, SLEEP NO MORE is it. An incredible work that will leave the reader on the edge of "Huh?" and "Is it possible?" throughout. If a great thriller, by definition, is chilling and heart pounding, then SLEEP NO MORE is a great thriller.