Sleeping Policemen: A Novel

A late-night joyride takes a sharp turn into nightmare territory when a group of college students tries to cover up a crime of carelessnessA moment of inattention on a winding roadway in the Smoky Mountains leaves a stranger dead and his accidental killers at the mercy of a possible witness. Finney Durant, Nick Laymon, and Reed Tucker are desperate not to be linked to the crime. Finney and Tucker insist on hiding the corpse, and Nick, hard up for money, takes the man’s cash. But the hit-and-run is just the beginning of their problems once they use a key found in the victim’s pocket to open a bus locker—and find a videotape that opens an ever-widening doorway into horror.

From Publishers Weekly

Returning to campus after a night out, college students Finney Durant, Nick Laymon and Reed Tucker discover the dark heart that lurks just below the surface of "civilized" morality when Finney's car hits someone on a winding Smokey Mountain road. Nick insists they return to the scene of the accident, where they find the victim-along with his loaded .45, a roll of hundred-dollar bills and the key to a bus station locker. They decide on a cover-up-despite his qualms, Nick wants the dead man's cash-and things turn grisly for the young men and Nick's girlfriend, Sue. The hit-and-run incident is just the beginning of their problems once they also nab the victim's key and find a videotape of the rape, torture and murder of a teenage girl in the bus station locker. Pivoting on Nick's tenuous grasp of morality, this nightmarish, graphic debut novel from Bailey (The Resurrection Man's Legacy and Other Stories) and Slay (Ian McEwan) attempts to imitate noir authors such as Jim Thompson and James M. Cain, but falls short on style and grit.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Dale Bailey is a professor at Lenoir-Rhyne College, a frequent contributor to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and an award-winning short fiction in Amazing Stories and SciFiction. Hisfull-length worksinclude American Nightmares, The Fallen, House of Bones, and The Resurrection Man's Legacy and Other Stories. He lives in Hickory, North Carolina. Jack Slay, Jr., is dean of students at LaGrange College. His work has appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Cemetery Dance, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Mississippi Magazine. He lives in LaGrange, Georgia.

Reviews

News