Dead Sleep. [Hardcover]

Greg Iles (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Coronet (2002)
• ISBN-10: 0340770082
• ISBN-13: 978-0340770085
• ASIN: B001KRSRNY
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (140 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,607,253 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Greg Iles was born in 1960 in Germany where his father ran the US Embassy medical clinic during the height of the Cold War. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1983 he performed for several years with the rock band Frankly Scarlet and is currently member of the band The Rock Bottom Remainders. His first novel, Spandau Phoenix, a thriller about war criminal Rudolf Hess, was published in 1993 and became a New York Times bestseller. Iles went on to write ten bestselling novels, including Third Degree, True Evil, Turning Angel, Blood Memory, The Footprints of God, and 24 Hours (released by Sony Pictures as Trapped, with full screenwriting credit for Iles). He lives in Natchez, Mississippi.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thriller Meets Police Procedural, September 16, 2001

By 

Untouchable (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dead Sleep (Hardcover)

Greg Iles has taken on the interesting, and surely daunting for a male author, task of writing a book in the first person from the female perspective. Not only is he dealing with the feelings of the opposite sex towards quite emotional issues, his main character is also a troubled soul, having lost her father when she was young, her mother to alcoholism and her sister to an unknown kidnapper. On top of that he deals with some pretty major issues such as rape and child abuse. Although, it's a big task, he has presented his character in a believable and interesting fashion and, to my mind, pulls it off.

Jordan Glass is a photojournalist who does a lot of travelling around the world. While she is Hong Kong, she visits an art gallery and finds herself face-to-face with what appears to be a painting of her. It is actually her twin sister, who has been missing for around eighteen months, presumed dead. The chilling aspect of the painting for Jordan is that the subject is supposed to be sleeping, but looks very much dead.

Jordan immediately notifies the FBI and has them reopen her sister's case. She travels back to the United States and manages to convince the FBI agents that she should be allowed to take an active part in the investigation. The hunt begins for the artist and the women that are his subjects, for Jordan's sister is only one of many missing women who have turned up on canvas.

All in all Dead Sleep is an exciting, smart-paced book mixing a thriller scenario with aspects of the typical police procedural. I did find myself having to deal with a couple of small quibbles, such as the photojournalist outsmarting the entire FBI when it comes to investigation and psychoanalysis. However, they were minor compared to the entertainment provided by another imaginative story courtesy of Mr Iles.

36 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Master of the Intelligent Thriller, July 16, 2001

By 

Timothy F. Halloran (Medfield, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dead Sleep (Hardcover)

Greg Iles is, simply put, the best thriller author working today. There are many others who are good, but all have evident weaknesses. Cornwell? Artificial dialogue and unrealistically ornery characters. Grisham/Crichton/Deaver? Formulaic writing and inconistent ability to write subtle, textured stories. Etc.

Iles scores big points with vivid characters, sympathetic villains, flawed protagonists, and enough perverse coloring to keep things edgy. He has never fallen into the trap of sticking with one subject - Nazi intrigue, Internet Sex, Serial Killers, Kidnappers, Civil Rights - all fall within his realm, and he puts in the research and elbow grease to write about his subplots and not around them.

I enjoy Iles' ability to bring characters to life through their passions and careers without pulling the focus away from the spiraling plot. Jordan Glass is a photojournalist, while the antagonists of this book are artists in the paint medium. This juxtaposition of careers and filters through which to view the world enables the characters to communicate through a common thread which facilitates impassioned dialogue.

Writing through the eyes of a beautiful tomboy also makes it clear that Iles can capably write circles around others who try this type of narrative risk (eg. James Patterson). He pulls off the trick to make her appear strong yet wounded, willful yet needy. There are no artificially difficult FBI agents who infiltrate almost all the run-of-the-mill thrillers and even the secondary characters are well fleshed out and interesting in their own right. Jordan's FBI "partner" John Kaiser is a Vietnam vet with a difficult past. Her sister is her identical twin, which in and of itself provides many interesting moments. The mysterious semi-antagonist, semi-protagonist M. De Becque is somehow established as a full-fledged character despite very little actual dialogue. The four primary antagonists are some of the most textured and charismatic I have encountered in thriller fare. Their actions are explained, there fears are bared and their commonalities with the protagonists are explored.

I could write a plot summary, but others here will handle here. Unlike a Deaver book in which you can generally guess that the most unlikely villain is indeed the villain, Iles refuses to insult our intelligence, and lets the story unfold in a natural light (hmmm.). The ending is not wasted on contrivance - instead it expresses, as do other Iles books, that the end-game in human life is survival and in the excitement and rewards life can bring through its trials. This allows him to finish his novels with a flourish where others fall flat.

As Wilde once wrote "They think a murderer's heart would taint each simple seed they sow. It is not true! God's kindly earth is kindlier than men know, and the red rose would but blow more red and the white rose whiter blow." (Ballad of Reading Gaol). Enjoy.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Iles has the Gift of Language, December 5, 2001

By 

Newt Gingrich (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
("THE")   

This review is from: Dead Sleep (Hardcover)

Greg Iles is my newest favorite novelist. His power of language and imagination are amazing. Every one of his novels is amazing (I have read 5 of the 6 he has written and I am reading the sixth now.). Each novel has a totally different premise with totally different characters. There is a bias toward the southern but the novels are worldwide in scope. This one begins in Hong Kong and goes to New York before ending up in New Orleans with a side trip to the Cayman Islands.

Iles has a wonderful sense of life, mystery and history and how they blend together to form one tapestry. He also has a wonderful gift to construct words that will keep you engrossed for the entire book.

In Dead Sleep a professional combat photographer sees pictures of dead women in an art exhibition in Hong Kong including a portrait of her twin sister who had been killed in New Orleans. She is compelled to track down the artist and ends up ensnared in a pattern of serial killing with macabre overtones (like Robert Parker and Stuart Woods, Iles now has a female protagonist). She inevitably ends up working with the FBI in a very strained relationship (it says something about the Bureau or about modern literary convention that you can only work with the FBI in a strained relationship).

I cannot recommend Iles books to highly and this certainly maintains the standard.