Sleeping Policemen [Hardcover]

Dale Bailey (Author), Jack Slay Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2006

Horror combines with noir motifs and a fast-moving plot in this tale of four college students who run over a pedestrian while driving at night in the Smoky Mountains. Finding a sheaf of hundred dollar bills and a mysterious key in the pockets of the dead man's coat, their curiosity is piqued and the friends follow clues to a bus station locker and a homemade video depicting the rape and murder of a missing teenage girl. In the hours that follow, the students find themselves under pressure from both a private detective who claims to represent the father of the missing girl and a state trooper who has connected them with the man they left for dead on the fog-shrouded mountain. Suddenly, into their nightmare of guilt and confusion, a shadowy underworld figure known as the Pachyderm appears, vehemently demanding his money and video back. Inexperienced young people battle both criminals and their own flawed instincts in this disturbing lesson about greed, excess, and cultural corruption.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Returning to campus after a night out, college students Finney Durant, Nick Laymon and Reed Tucker discover the dark heart that lurks just below the surface of "civilized" morality when Finney's car hits someone on a winding Smokey Mountain road. Nick insists they return to the scene of the accident, where they find the victim-along with his loaded .45, a roll of hundred-dollar bills and the key to a bus station locker. They decide on a cover-up-despite his qualms, Nick wants the dead man's cash-and things turn grisly for the young men and Nick's girlfriend, Sue. The hit-and-run incident is just the beginning of their problems once they also nab the victim's key and find a videotape of the rape, torture and murder of a teenage girl in the bus station locker. Pivoting on Nick's tenuous grasp of morality, this nightmarish, graphic debut novel from Bailey (The Resurrection Man's Legacy and Other Stories) and Slay (Ian McEwan) attempts to imitate noir authors such as Jim Thompson and James M. Cain, but falls short on style and grit.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Dale Bailey is a professor at Lenoir-Rhyne College, a frequent contributor to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and an award-winning short fiction in Amazing Stories and SciFiction. His full-length works include American Nightmares, The Fallen, House of Bones, and The Resurrection Man's Legacy and Other Stories. He lives in Hickory, North Carolina. Jack Slay, Jr., is dean of students at LaGrange College. His work has appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Cemetery Dance, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Mississippi Magazine. He lives in LaGrange, Georgia.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Golden Gryphon Press (June 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193084641X
• ISBN-13: 978-1930846418
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,099,344 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Avalanche of a story with high-octane action, November 9, 2006

By 

- Kasia S. (New York City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Sleeping Policemen (Hardcover)

Few books have made me think as much as this one, and once the last page was turned my brain was still on heavy rotation absorbing this high caliber story of one millisecond event that changed a few lives forever and cut many more short.

All it takes is a blink of an eye, a flap of a bird's wing, one stone tumbling the wrong way for a life to change or be extinguished forever, such is the story of Sleeping Policemen. Three college friends driving in the night to Knoxville, Tucker, Finney and Nick, are hanging out in the car and talking about the strip joint they just visited ,drinking beers and being guys. When Finney reaches down for his cold can of beer between his thighs a dark shape runs across the road, in that split second he hits it. The find a man lying down in the road, his blonde hair matted to his sweaty head, the life force so mysterious now extinguished form his cooling body and they slowly awake to realize what they have just done. They killed a man. Driving along, talking and laughing, their lives are suddenly propelled into pitch black darkness of guilty terror and reality of their actions. Three innocent people are now forced to deal with a situation that no one wants to be in. I still remember reading the book, shuddering at what was running through their heads, the writing so superb, so real, I felt like the guy behind the wheel, goose bumps on my skin, feeling the unchanged reality creeping in.

The story takes turn into world of nightmares. Real ones. No vampires no werewolves no magic. Plain human terror, the cooling sweat on their brows as the guys realize that not only the guy who they hit is running with something major, a key to a safe deposit box that holds something so vile and so intense that their guts would twist at the very thought of the truth, but that they are running away from a murder scene. I dare not give anything away, but the tale is so real, so scary, brutal and animalistic that my brain is still frazzled.
Nick and Finney realize that they cannot report this crime and head back to their college dorms only to be stalked by two faced cops and a sneaky detective as bodies start to pile up to cover up the original crime. When one person finds out they start going down. Morals fly loose in this story, people change, they are good but they are also bad, they want money and they want love, revenge and they can get whatever they want, using Nick and his girlfriend Sue to do as they please with. When the guys find out what is hidden behind the key in the safe deposit box they have bigger bad guys on their tails, and they do not hesitate to raise their hands in self defense. I have never read a book this short with so many dead bodies piling up in it as this one. No one is safe, no one is immune, the hero is bad, he is also good, he loves and cares but he does not think twice to strike at the opponent.

Sleeping Policemen is an amazing story, violent, gory and hair risingly good that plows through morals, bodies and has the craziest ending I have read in a while. This tale will make anyone feel blessed not to be in Nicks, Tuck and Finney's shoes, I promise you that!!! This is my first book by this talented due but wow, I will not rest till I read all they have penned. Bravo.


-Kasia S.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true science-fiction thriller depicting the suspenseful adventure of Nick Laymon, July 3, 2006

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sleeping Policemen (Hardcover)

Expertly co-authored by Dale Bailey and Jack Slay, Jr., Sleeping Policemen is a true science-fiction thriller depicting the suspenseful adventure of Nick Laymon. Following Nick and his friends through the incidental killing of a man on a stretch of deserted mountain highway, bringing them to his thick wad of one-hundred dollar bills and a key leading to a mysterious video-tape, Sleeping Policemen captivates the reader's attention from beginning to end with a swiftly paced story filled with engaging twists and unexpected turns. A beautifully crafted novel that documents Bailey and Slay as a quite consummate and original storytelling team, Sleeping Policemen is very highly recommended for all science fiction buffs and mystery fans searching for a genuine page-turner of a read!