Dead Sleep

Table of Contents

 

 

“Rejoice: Greg Iles has published another thriller. . . . [His] prose is clean, his characters motivated by deep-seated emotion buried in their troubled past.”

—
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

“Iles continues to amaze with his incredible range, this time around crafting a complex serial killer novel.”

“Suspenseful.”

“
Deep Sleep
is filled with nonstop action, but enough serious subject matter to leave you with something to think about.”

“Atmospheric, sexy, and provocative in its depiction of the duality of human nature.”

“Iles deftly sets up his plot, introducing a string of memorable characters and taking the reader on a ride that's as fast as any technothriller and as well thought out as an Agatha Christie mystery. . . . Grade A.”

“Full of twists and turns . . . difficult to put down . . . satisfying and enjoyable.”

—Roanoke Times & World-News
(VA)

“
Dead Sleep
is perfect mystery mind candy.”

“Terrifying in its intensity, compelling in its pace. . . . A winner.”

—
Chattanooga Times-Free Press

“An enigmatic crime figure, as brilliant as Hannibal Lecter. . . . Iles provides enough twists and turns to keep his hair-raising ending unpredictable.”

—
The Memphis Commercial Appeal

“Brilliantly plotted . . . bone-chilling suspense.”

—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“A chilling tale . . . calculated to jangle the reader's every nerve. And jangle it will.”

—
Library Journal

 

 

 

 

“Grabs you fast and keeps you glued.”

—
Entertainment Weekly
(A-)

“The climactic unveiling . . . will spellbind readers.”

—
Boston Herald

“Incredibly engrossing. . . . Here is a major talent strutting his considerable stuff.”

—
The Denver Post

“Thriller-meister Greg Iles . . . conveys the darker undercurrents of small-town life, and he doesn't flinch in handling the racial themes.”

—
Chicago Sun-Times

“The pace is frenetic, the fear and paranoia palpable.”

—
The Cleveland Plain Dealer

 

 

“An ingenious suspense thriller . . . fascinating.”

—
The New York Times Book Review

“A chilling roller-coaster ride.”

—
Library Journal

“Greg Iles mixes action and suspense like a master.”

—Stephen Coonts

“Stay-up-all-night suspense. . . . A relentlessly readable thriller.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

“Iles displays a flair by pushing topical hot buttons.”

—
Booklist

“Jackhammer pacing . . . addictive. . . . You know you're in Iles country.”

—
The Clarion-Ledger

 

 

“On fire with suspense.”

—Stephen King

“A thriller of such accomplishment that it vaporizes every cliché . . . good enough to read twice.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

“A truly fine novel. . . . Totally absorbing and ingenious.”

—Nelson DeMille

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Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a G. P. Putnam's Sons edition.

 

First Signet Printing, July 2002

Copyright © Greg Iles, 2001

eISBN : 978-1-101-16187-6

Excerpt from
Sleep No More
copyright © Greg Iles, 2002
All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

 

 

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

 

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1

I STOPPED SHOOTING people six months ago, just after I won the Pulitzer Prize. People were always my gift, but they were wearing me down long before I won the prize. Still, I kept shooting them, in some blind quest that I didn't even know I was on. It's hard to admit that, but the Pulitzer was a different milestone for me than it is for most photographers. You see, my father won it twice. The first time in 1966, for a series in McComb, Mississippi. The second in 1972, for a shot on the Cambodian border. He never really got that one. The prizewinning film was pulled from his camera by American marines on the wrong side of the Mekong River. The camera was all they found. Twenty frames of Tri-X made the sequence of events clear. Shooting his motor-drive Nikon F2 at five frames per second, my dad recorded the brutal execution of a female prisoner by a Khmer Rouge soldier, then captured the face of her executioner as the pistol was turned toward the brave but foolish man pointing the camera at him. I was twelve years old and ten thousand miles away, but that bullet struck me in the heart.

Jonathan Glass was a legend long before that day, but fame is no comfort to a lonely child. I didn't see my father nearly enough when I was young, so following in his footsteps has been one way for me to get to know him. I still carry his battle-scarred Nikon in my bag. It's a dinosaur by today's standards, but I won my Pulitzer with it. He'd probably joke about the sentimentality of my using his old camera, but I know what he'd say about my winning the prize:
Not bad, for a girl.

And then he'd hug me. God, I miss that hug. Like the embrace of a great bear, it swallowed me completely, sheltered me from the world. I haven't felt those arms in twenty-eight years, but they're as familiar as the smell of the sweet olive tree he planted outside my window when I turned eight. I didn't think a tree was much of a birthday present back then, but later, after he was gone, that hypnotic fragrance drifting through my open window at night was like his spirit watching over me. It's been a long time since I slept under that window.

For most photographers, winning the Pulitzer is a triumph of validation, a momentous beginning, the point at which your telephone starts ringing with the job offers of your dreams. For me it was a stopping point. I'd already won the Capa Award twice, which is the one that matters to people who know. In 1936, Robert Capa shot the immortal photo of a Spanish soldier at the instant a fatal bullet struck him, and his name is synonymous with bravery under fire. Capa befriended my father as a young man in Europe, shortly after Capa and Cartier-Bresson and two friends founded Magnum Photos. Three years later, in 1954, Capa stepped on a land mine in what was then called French Indochina, and set a tragic precedent that my father, Sean Flynn (Errol's reckless son), and about thirty other American photographers would follow in one way or another during the three decades of conflict known to the American public as the Vietnam War. But the public doesn't know or care about the Capa Award. It's the Pulitzer they know, and that's what makes the winners marketable.