Praying For Sleep

Praying for Sleep by Jeffery Deaver

This was one of those books that, after I had read the first chapter, I came to the realization that I had already read it some time ago.  Although the scenario was definitely familiar, I realized that I didn’t have much of a recollection of the intricacies of the story, yet I remembered that I thoroughly enjoyed it.  So, I was at a crossroads - do I discard it since I had already “checked it off the list”?  Or, do I indulge once more since I had largely forgotten the details?  Well, I chose the latter, but it was not an easy decision.  Not when you have dozens of books on your “read as soon as possible list”.

Well, if you’re not an avid reader, I’m sure you’ve watched one of your favorite movies multiple times, as well as a t.v. episode, so the idea isn’t as crazy as one might think.  Plus, those “really good books” will be read multiple times by true fans.  So I plundered on.

This is one of those “dark and stormy night” (literally) stories.  Michael Hrubek is a psychotic schizophrenic who manages to escape from a mental hospital.  He’s very big, very scary, very unstable, and very.....well.....psychotic.  He was institutionalized (this time) because of his threats towards Lisbonne Atcheson, who testified against him for a murder that happened at a State Park.  Michael is headed towards Lisbonne, and with “the storm of the century” coming, it’s going to make things difficult for all involved trying to warn and/or help her.  Not to mention it’s going to be a laborious task to track this lunatic.

So the wheels are set in motion for a thriller, and author Jeffery Deaver succeeds in a big way.  Once you get past the cliches such as “A storm is coming, and it’s going to be a bad one!” etc. over and over again, he manages to gives us a very enrapturing tale.

The title of this book is derived from the two main characters, Lisbonne and Michael, and the fact that they both have trouble sleeping due to their circumstances, and they only time they’re truly at peace (especially Michael) is when he is, in fact, asleep.  Actually, it’s quite irrelevant because there are so many other things going on here.  There are a lot of players here in this chase.  In addition to Michael and Lisbonne, we have Lisbonne’s husband and her sister, a few members of the hospital staff with different ideas and motives, a laid-off cop who’s out tracking the killer with his reliable hound, and some assorted other characters.

One thing that Deaver does in this story, which many find annoying, is he spends a lot of time with all of these characters.  He dives into their histories, their situations, and their motives.  Yes, it can be a bit of a distraction from the story, but he makes these diversions interesting, so I never felt as though my time as a reader was being wasted.  I guess you could argue that these diversions were unnecessary, but it certainly didn’t take anything away from my enjoyment of the story.

The one downside about the fact that I had read this story before, was that even though I didn’t remember the bulk of the details, I somewhat had an idea of a few of the twists in the story that Deaver is famous for, so my shock value was not quite the same as when I read it the first time.  Regardless, this was a great thriller, and I would highly recommend to all.