Title: The Sleeping Dead
Author: Richard Farren Barber
Genre: Horror
Age Group: Adult
Rating: 3 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Don’t listen…
When Jackson Smith attends an interview to escape his dead-end job, he witnesses a man jumping to his death through an office window. But this suicide is only the first of many he encounters. All around him, men and women begin taking their own lives. These seemingly random events make little sense to Jackson until he hears voices urging him to join the others.
Don’t look…
As Jackson fights the desire to self-destruct, he flees through a mad city where the river and streets pile high with bodies of the sleeping dead, those who have simply surrendered to the strange voices.
Don’t hope…
Jackson’s only chance is to find an escape to this madness before giving in to the strange voices in his head.
The Sleeping Dead offers an intriguing concept and combines it with solid writing. Jackson Smith needs to get to his job interview, but it seems like something strange is going on with the world today. One of the people present at his interview, ends up committing suicide right after. And he isn’t the only one. As Jackson waits for police and ambulances to arrive, more and more people around him start committing suicide.
Random people get crippled by suicidal thoughts, and throw themselves off buildings, bridges, or do whatever it takes to end their own lives. When Jackson realizes the world is going to hell, he sets out to find his girlfriend Donna. His only thought is that Donna may be able to explain all this. Meanwhile, he rescues a girl named Susan, and the two of them team up.
While the book starts out supsenseful, the ending was a tad dissapointing. There was no real explanation for what was going on, how it happened and why. Not everything needs to be explained, but I really wanted one here.
Definitely not a bad read though, and recommended to all horror fans. If you don’t mind not having all loose ends tied up, then definitely give it a shot.
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