Ed's Mini Book Review - Sleepless by Charlie Huston

Cover of Sleepless: A Novel

I'll start by saying that Charlie Huston is one of my favorite writers so I may be a little biased in this review. Having long been a fan of the Joe Pitt casebooks as well as his Henry Thompson books, needless to say I was rather stoked at a new Huston book and this time a stand alone like The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death.

While reading Sleepless, I couldn't help but feel like I was reading something with just a ton if different influences, many of which I have an interest in as well. We have a look into the online MMO gamer world (i.e. World of Warcraft and the like) and I am sure the research for that must have been a lot of fun. Just plug yourself down in front of the computer and game til your eyeballs dry out, get some more Mountatin Dew and get right back at it. Huston also treats the reader to something that has been a bit on our minds, in a collective sub-conscious and that is the whole 'viral thriller' trope with the spread of a disease that has no cure. As an aside, this has been something that I have been reading a lot of lately though more into the zombie virus theme but I think that this is something that our collective society has had on the brain (mmmm, more brains!!!) with the fear of chemical weapons and such. This might explain the popularity of zombies again with best sellers such as World War Z. Eh, just my two cents.

We also get some typical Huston good ol' crime fiction as the story centers around an idealistic undercover narcotics officer as he investigates the possible underground distribution of a drug that can possibly cure the Sleepless virus that has spread around the world. And what a world Huston paints for us. We get a dystopian future not unlike the Escape from New York film or even yet, Strange Days, where private security protects the rich from a world with little order due to the spread of the Sleepless virus.

Weaving all of these elements may seem a bit ambitious but more and more, with every book, Huston is proving himself a master of his craft. Tight, suspenseful and ultimately heart wrenching, Sleepless is a book I can't recommend enough and it will leave you just that, sleepless, as you won't want to put it down.


A+

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