#18. An Apostrophe In The Title – Don’t Close Your Eyes by P A Cunliffe (Kindle)

Every month I receive a list of books from Amazon Prime First Reads UK and I look through to find what I think is the best choice in a list of titles, where the blurb doesn’t interest me and it’s written by someone I’ve never heard of. I tend to download a title because it’s free. It will go onto my Kindle App and often get forgotten about, but at least I know if I get stuck somewhere, there’s a book sitting on my ‘phone that I can read. Sometimes the book is as bad as I feared, other times I find a gem of a book; mostly the book is fine, but I probably wouldn’t buy it. This is one reason why I am enjoying this challenge; I am getting through some titles I doubt I would normally read. A book with an apostrophe should be easy to find, but there are very few on my bookshelf, and those that I have, I’ve already read, so, I’ve scrolled through my Kindle and I’ve found a debut novel from an author whose book I picked out in June 2023!

“One missing person. Ten sleepless nights. Whatever happens, don't close your eyes...

Catherine is frantic. It's her husband Simon's turn to take their son to nursery and he's nowhere to be seen. He promised he'd be here. So, where is he? And why isn't he taking her calls?

Her worst fears are soon realised when the police arrive at her door to tell her that Simon is missing, presumed dead. Refusing to accept that he's gone, Catherine spends her days retracing his last steps, and her nights searching the streets in desperation.

She will not rest, she will not sleep, until she's put her family back together.

The days merge into one, and things quickly unravel. Then comes another knock at the door. This time, a young woman. A stranger. Who tells Catherine she doesn't know her husband at all. That their whole life is a lie.

Catherine needs to know the truth. She needs to find Simon more than ever.

The body can't survive for more than 10 days without sleep. Will Catherine find her husband and uncover the truth, before it's too late?”

 

This is an interesting, albeit predictable book, and you will need to be able to suspend your disbelief to get through it all! It was one of those perfect quick read books you can get through in a wet weekend without too much trouble.

The book is told from various points of view and Easter eggs are drip fed through the story allowing the clues to build up so you can second guess the ending. There are also excerpts of a recording that is “played” in between the main chapters until it suddenly twigs in your head what’s going on and who it is in the recording.

The book starts with a newspaper clipping from September 2018, in which a jogger pushes a woman in front of a double-decker London bus. The woman was specifically targeted but survives; the jogger gets away, but there is a police appeal for anyone who might recognise the man in the CCTV footage.

November 2022, Catherine has been woken up by her son and she is exasperated. She is due to meet her friend for a full day of treats; a lie-in, brunch with her friend, followed by visiting an art exhibition. This is a day she has been looking forward to, but her husband is no-where to be found and it is his turn to take their son to nursery. Catherine can’t understand where he is, she has tried calling his ‘phone but he doesn’t answer. He had left a message on her phone in the early hours, so she assumes he has been out all-night drinking with work colleagues. She hurries to get her son Charlie ready for nursery, but as she opens the door to leave the house she is met by the police who inform her that Simon’s body has been found in a burnt out car.

Catherine refuses to believe her husband is dead, she believes she would know if something had happened to him, that she would feel it. She concludes that the police won’t investigate properly and therefore she will have to do whatever it takes to find Simon…he is only missing after all.

On the other side of town, a podcaster is still investigating the mysterious jogger on the bridge. Years later, still no-one knows who the jogger was, or anything about the woman that he tried to push under a bus. Someone out there must know something, yet no-one has contacted “The Push” podcast with any new information. The plug is about to be pulled on the true-crime series; and now its presenter has mysteriously disappeared.

A young woman turns up on Catherine’s doorstep claiming that she knows Simon, and he isn’t who Catherine thinks he is. In her sleep deprived state, she throws this young woman out of her house, but she can’t stop thinking about what the woman said to her. Despite how tired she is, she needs to find out the truth.

What I found most interesting about this thriller was the effect of sleep deprivation on Catherine’s character. Lacking sleep, her memory starts to fail her, she can’t remember words that should come easily to her. As the sleep deprivation increases the effects on her body become more profound and her internal dialogue lets the reader into her mind and how aware she is of being unable to function properly. She becomes discombobulated and starts to put her young son’s life in danger. She is clearly struggling, yet no-one steps in to stop her from, what is, effectively killing herself.

I found Catherine’s internal dialogue fascinating:

“Ten days without sleep, and vital functions in the body shut down; death soon follows. But long before that, lack of sleep can drive you mad.”

I like my sleep too much, if I feel exhausted, I’ll have a ‘nana nap’ in the afternoon. I know that if I nod off for half an hour or so, I’ll feel much better placed to think clearly. So, I couldn’t help but think the whole refusing to get some sleep for a few hours both stupid and selfish. She’s a doctor and knows what she is doing to herself. She might be going through the grief process and wants answers, but she’s a mother, she should be thinking about what is best for her son. There were too many occasions when her actions had me rolling my eyes, but then if she is sleep deprived, those rational moments will no longer exist in her head. If I’m honest, this part of the book rattled me and I thought no-one, even someone who can’t think rationally, would try to continuously stay awake for ten days.

But then, this is a book without major plot twists, so the audience needs something to keep them on the edge of the seat. As the days tick by, you wonder how long Catherine can survive. She’s already put the ten-day limit into the readers head before her vital organs start to shut down. If I’m honest, this plotline became a bit too ridiculous, she couldn’t look for her husband 24/7 so why not get a bit of shut eye while her young son was asleep? Perhaps I was overthinking this book!

‘Don’t Close Your Eyes’ is an interesting thriller in which there aren’t any real plot twists, just revelations as the pages are turned. The main two characters are naïve but likeable in their own ways, although Catherine becomes exasperating, and I really wanted someone to slip a sedative into her morning cuppa. Perhaps if she had a couple of siestas she might have seen what was staring her in the face sooner, but I guess lack of sleep was the USP of the book!

 

Genre: Suspense, Thriller, Psychological Thriller, Psychological Fiction

Release Date: 1^st July 2023

Publisher: Embla Books

Pages: 396

 This book is currently unavailable to purchase from Bookshop.org  

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