Sleep No More

Rating:
Summary: Different, but still excellent.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Started Boring, Improved in the Middle, Ended Bad.
Review: I did not like this book at all. It took me 2 weeks to get through the first 70 boring pages. This book goes nowhere fast. Once it did get going there was some real potential. I zipped through the rest of the book. I was shocked this booked ended so silly. What a waste of time. This book was bizarre but not good. I would have given it more stars but the beginning was so slow and the end was such a let down that I did not have the heart to lie.

Rating:
Summary: Predictable
Review: Though in previous reviews of Greg Iles novels I raved about his talent and how much I loved his work, I will backpedal on that a bit for "Sleep No More". While Iles's writing is tight and his stories move along with a quick pace, "Sleep No More" loses its pace somewhere in the third chapter and never quite regains its footing.

"Sleep No More" has the feel of having been written prior to Iles's other books, having a more amateur-ish style instead of the excellent previous books. While this particular novel is still far better than many novels in the genre, it's not one of the author's personal best. Still worth reading!

Rating:
Summary: Another new genre
Review: If you are a fan of Greg's work you will know by now that he is a difficult writer to pin down. He has written historical fiction on par with Jack Higgins and Ken Follet. He has also written legal style thrillers in the vein of Grisham or Turow. And he has written straight action suspense books that are as good as anyone writing today.

With this in mind, I hope you will enter into Sleep No More with no preconceptions. This book once again enters new territory and ventures into Fantasy and potentially a little into Horror. I like how the story is based on a supernatural context, but you don't really know until the end if it really is supernatural at all. Since Greg has always been so eclectic I never knew what to think when I read this book. Is there going to be a 'logical' explanation at the end or will it turn out to be a 'fantastic' explanation. If someone wrote this book that wrote the same type of book over and over and never ventured into new territory, I would have felt comfortable in guessing at the ending, but not this time. I didn't know until the last page exactly what was going to happen, and I really enjoyed that.

Writers like Greg Iles are few and far between. They are the ones who write stories; they don't write what they think their readers want to read. You never know what you are going to get with him, but you know it will be well-written and fun to read. Maybe his next book can be a full-blown horror novel; I'd love to see that.

Rating:
Summary: Nice
Review: For the reviewer that called this story absurd: it's called 'using your IMAGINATION'.
I liked it.

I love science fiction/fantasy, supernatural, horror, mystery, and romance. This book was spooky and fun.

If my husband ever has an affair, I hope he gets a scare like John Waters! Serves him right! Ha, ha, ha ;)

Rating:
Summary: GREAT BOOK!!! WORTH GETTING LESS SLEEP OVER!
Review: This book was a very fast paced read! It was exciting and had new twists throughout so it never left you bored. I have 2 small children and don't get to read much except late at night. I stayed up until around 4 am reading 2 nights in a row. I just had a hard time putting this one down. Although, it has supernatural events in it, it wasn't so far fetched that you were annoyed if you don't like that sort of thing. I usually don't read those type books, but this was WONDERFUL!!! It involves a man much like a lot of those out there today we can relate to. He works hard, has a good life with a wife and child. But one day and old flame walks back into his life.... Iles has a great writing style and has the stories to go right along with it! You won't be disappointed in this one!!!

Rating:
Summary: Suspenseful Science Fiction Thriller
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely top-rate although a change from his usual books
Review: Iles is in top form this time around. Every single one of the characters in this book is compelling and that's no small feat, considering that one of them may not even be alive, at least not in the conventional sense.
As the story opens, John Waters seems to have a fairly stable life, except for the uncertainty that goes along with his choice of career - searching for oil. He's also settled into a marriage of compromises, loyal to his depressed wife but longing for more. Although he and his wife seem to be committed to one another, their sex life is all but nonexistent after a series of miscarriages.
And then...a voice from the past appears...in the body of a woman named Eve. Eve, however, says she is really John's former love, Mallory, who supposedly died years ago. Not surprisingly, Waters can't believe this far-fetched tale and tries to discover how Eve is pulling off her "act." But as time goes on, Waters finds it harder and harder to dismiss her words, crazy as they seem.
I knew Iles was a good writer before I even picked up this book. And yet if someone would have told me I'd read a book that combined elements of horror, suspense and even science fiction (and not only read it but be unable to put it down), I'd have laughed. For one thing, I hate novels which seem to have no basis in the "real" world. For another, I've found few books that combine all three elements in a way that hold together or make me willing to suspend my belief. But Iles pulls it off and does it so well that you may find yourself (as I did) ignoring the phone, hunger pangs - and even putting off bathroom breaks till the last possible minute.
But this book is more than just a riveting page-turner. Its the kind of work that is thought-provoking as well, turning fiction into a way of seeing deeper truths about the human condition - what it means to fall in love, to revisit the past, to wonder "what if" - and more. If you want entertainment AND enlightenment, pick up a copy of this one!

Rating:
Summary: A Different Genre Than Earlier Works
Review: "Sleep No More" was disappointing and dissatisfying when compared to "Mortal Fear", "Black Cross", "Spandau Phoenix" and "The Quiet Game". The cover endorsement by Stephen King should have been enough indication, but I didn't take heed. I have no objection to the premise of the book, and didn't find "Sleep No More" disturbing or even mildly unsettling. Worse, I found the plot tedious and the characters not the intelligent residents of Mr. Iles' previous writings cited above. I could put "Sleep No More" down and wait days to read more, and that was very disappointing because I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. reading his earlier books. Don't expect the same style, concise story-telling, crisp plot and language, or characters of Greg Iles' earlier stories. If you like basic horror/fantasy, you might enjoy "Sleep No More."

Rating:
Summary: An Elegantly Chilling Ghost Story
Review: John Waters is a happily married man with a young daughter he adores. His business is doing well and he and his wife, Lily, have worked hard to turn their antebellum home in Natchez, Mississippi, into a showplace. John thinks little these days about his old college love affair with Mallory Candler, tragically dead now for over 10 years. And then one day he meets Eve Sumner. In love with his wife, John appreciates Eve's beauty and air of sensuality, but is ready to let it go at that. Until Eve turns and mouths a phrase to him that Mallory used to say.

Curious, one meeting leads to another and then one thing leads to another until John is in over his head. Because, you see, Eve claims that she IS, by a circuitous route, Mallory. And it just gets curiouser and curiouser from there.

Two weeks into their torrid affair, Eve is found murdered, like Mallory. Unlike in Mallory's case, however, John knows that he will be the prime suspect unless he can find out what's going on before he is arrested. The rest of the story is one heck of a wild ride all the way to the stunning conclusion. Either John is on the receiving end of the gaslighting to end all gaslightings, or he is the victim of one of the most chilling hauntings ever. For afficinados of both conventional thrillers and the occult, I highly recommend Greg Iles's latest finely wrought offering. You may lose some sleep, but you won't be disappointed.