The Sleep Police

by Jay Bonansinga
Signet $6.99

Jay Bonansinga continues to produce thrillers that force you to cast them as movies in your head even as you speed-read their action-splattered pages. The author of such cinematic thrillers as THE BLACK MARIAH, THE KILLER'S GAME, HEAD CASE, BLOODHOUND and SICK is at his best when letting the action roll like a Jackie Chan movie. If his best quality also sometimes gets him into trouble, it's only because of overenthusiasm, not lack of talent, for Bonansinga writes action scenes as well as or better than most. Occasionally we may find ourselves feeling as we do while watching "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," or some Jackie Chan movies, that the action has finally become "too much." Not too intense, just "too much" - therefore overwhelming both plot and characters instead of serving them. THE SLEEP POLICE was the first Bonansinga novel to push its climactic action to the point of annoyance for me, I'll admit. But the beginning and middle are as engaging as anything Bonansinga's ever done, making any quibbles about the ending just that, quibbles.

Frank Janus is a homicide cop with a problem. An unsolved case from years before has forced him into therapy and pretty much ruined his marriage and his ability to sleep. Now it seems the Thumb-Sucker killer, who poses his female victims in fetal positions with their thumbs between their lips, may be active again, and Frank can barely stand to participate at the scene of the crime, let alone investigate. His sleep patterns - already a morass of dysfunction - worsen, as do the black-outs, which he's suffered for years. Suddenly faced with all-too familiar imagery, Frank withdraws into himself and seeks the help of his police therapist, Dr. Henry Pope, whose regression sessions have worked wonders with Frank during his most difficult times. Though aware that he's becoming a burden to his partner and friend, Sully Deets, Frank finds himself lost deeper and deeper in a mental minefield that may be solved by the analysis of his and his brother's childhood memories, memories filled to bursting by a grossly overweight mother who has been confined in a mental institution for years. And he will need to face their mother's invention, the Sleep Police, which may hold the key to Frank's sleep deprivation and blackout problems.

Then Frank finds a videotape, on which is a confession - his own confession to the murders. But Frank has no memory of making the tape.

Confused, guilty, and now bloodied by new, much closer-to-home murders, Frank accepts that he is the Thumb-Sucker killer and, in a dramatic standoff, turns himself in. Then the real fun starts.

Scenes reminiscent of "The Fugitive," "The Watcher," "The Color of Night," "Face/Off" and a half dozen other recent thrillers reinforce the novel's "screenability," while showing off the author's facility with the set-up and description of cameraready storyboards. Indeed, with only a little creative editing, THE SLEEP POLICE is a production-friendly screenplay, as one would expect when considering Bonansinga's experience in film and studio work. All of this makes for a brilliant chiller that thumps along to a frenetically paced drumbeat, reducing the need for thought and analysis by keeping the action bubbling on high heat page after page. 

Frank Janus is a Bruce Willis type you want to cheer for from the beginning, a definite plus, and it's hard to believe that he would convince himself of his guilt so easily. But this is a small problem and of less import than my main quibble, that the action in the climax drags on too long and includes too much physical abuse and torture for the protagonists to stand up over and over, chase some more, and face off yet again. It becomes as exhausting as the "Temple of Doom" stunt sequences, which seem interminable and increasingly unrealistic when so ruthlessly sequenced. Shave twenty pages off this novel and it would have been nearly perfect. But, especially given the protagonists' physical condition, the climax becomes too hard to swallow. 

Let not these tiny obstacles keep you from enjoying a thoroughly engrossing work from a writer whose pen has become synonymous with the words "action thriller," and whose excursions into personal darkness and evil done as/by/to children never fail to bring a shudder down your spine. A new novel by Jay Bonansinga is always worth your time, especially if high concept is your cup of poison - hardly anyone around today does it better, and very few have what it takes to bring it off. A slightly flawed Bonansinga novel is still leaps and bounds ahead of most other players.