Author: Paul Tremblay
Publisher: Holt Publishing
Binding: Paperback
The Little Sleep by Paul Tremblay is an ambitious addition to the PI genre that invokes the spirit of Chandler with the title, and that unfortunately means some readers and reviewers may be sidetracked by comparisons. Hopefully most will read Tremblay’s debut with an open mind and judge him on his own terms and find him a worthy addition to the genre.
The Little Sleep follows Boston PI Mark Genevich. It begins with Genevich being hired to find a woman’s fingers. The woman claims when she woke up, her fingers were gone and had been replaced with someone else’s fingers.
Fascinating premise aside, at the outset we learn Genevich is no ordinary PI. He’s had a bad accident in the past (the details of which aren’t fully divulged) and suffers from narcolepsy. Just when things get interesting you realize that Genevich has hallucinations and also blacks out without much warning. Genevich’s case is itself a hallucination, but the real case he’s hired to work is not, and unfortunately, he also has times he appears to be awake but is really asleep and unaware of what’s happening.
As a result, he can’t remember who hired him or the details of the real case he’s supposed to be working on, which does have a connection to his hallucination, marking one of the minor issues I had with TLS. There are a few coincidences that are important throughout the story, the coincidence forming a connection that hasn’t been set up through investigating, and it’s hard to use coincidences without them seeming contrived.
Despite that minor issue, The Little Sleep is original, the writing is taut, and it starts off fast and continues to move with increasing speed until the resolution. On the surface, it’s action-packed and intense, with plenty of interesting twists that build the suspense and keep the reader engaged until the end.
However, The Little Sleep has a few weak spots. Some readers are going to throw this book at the wall, and it’s hard to address those reasons without touching on possible spoilers, but there is no way to address these points without revealing a few things about the story, so read on at your own discretion.
The condition of the narrator is one that provides an interesting challenge. Genevich has a legitimate medical condition that enables him to withhold information from the reader, and himself. The problem is that this condition could easily become a gimmick, and I suspect there are some readers who will find this part of the book irritating. Genevich can’t be considered a wholly reliable narrator because of his condition, and as the book progresses and the reader learns that many of the most action-packed and intense scenes were hallucinations, there can be a sense of frustration or the feeling of being let down. It’s a bit like that season of DALLAS that was all a dream; enough of the book doesn’t actually happen, so it’s possible to hit a point where you stop caring. When so often, the danger Genevich apparently faces is all in his own head, it’s possible to reach a point where you don’t feel the suspense of the scene because you dismiss it as a hallucination before that’s revealed.
I think my biggest problem with this is the fact that this book is launching a series. For one book, it’s a clever innovation, a unique idea that’s been executed well. I fully expect The Little Sleep to be nominated for the Shamus, and to find favour with fans of the PI genre.
The challenge Tremblay will face as he progresses with the series is to minimize the use of hallucinations and find other ways to advance the plot and build the tension without the medical condition of the protagonist becoming a stand by. Over-reliance on hallucinations risks being seen as a stand-in for dream sequences in books, and dream sequences often do little to advance the plot and can be seen as a ploy to try to trick the reader. There was at least one point where the hallucinations were like a set of Russian dolls, one inside the other, and when you got to the last one you were left wondering if another reveal was forthcoming, and perhaps the whole book had been a hallucination. Tremblay certainly has enough talent to tell an interesting story without resorting to gimmicks, as I felt that The Little Sleep treaded close to the line and I, for one, hope that he’s able to balance this out perhaps a bit better in subsequent offerings. Otherwise, he may find readers unwilling to invest in a book where a considerable percentage of the content is devoted to events that don’t actually happen.
Whether the condition of the protagonist annoys the hell out of you or evokes your sympathy and interest, I doubt most people will feel ambivalent about The Little Sleep. The author has swung for the fences, pushing the genre in his own way, and there’s no denying the author’s obvious talent. I didn’t throw this book at the wall, although I came close early on. Setting that aside, I felt no pressure to finish it, but read the whole book because I wanted to. At some point, I had to admit the hook was firmly in place, and if you could see the whole bookshelves in this house where ARCs are stacked and the separate bookshelf that contains our tbr pile, you’d know that’s no small achievement. All in all, it’s an engaging book that is memorable, and Tremblay has proven himself an author to watch.
