What a dazzling premise! Charlie Huston posits for his sci-fi thriller Sleepless: A Novel an alternative early 21st century in which a tenth of the population has turned sleepless, a condition that torments and eventually kills the afflicted. Into a familiar, yet ghastly Los Angeles, Huston plunges Park Haas, the last honest cop, and his insanely destructive antagonist, the assassin Jasper. A propulsive plot propels Haas into a quest to save his loved ones, amidst a dystopia portrayed vividly by the author’s luscious prose. Characters major and minor bloom on the page. Huston’s dialogue is among the best I’ve read this year.
Sleepless grips and never lets go until a harrowing, yet redemptive end that literally had me teary, no mean feat. And as I reluctantly read to the end of the short epilogue, wishing for more, I was struck by the sensation that this brilliant thriller succeeds exactly as did that classic film Bladerunner.
One of 2010’s best novels bar none. 4 stars.