The Sleeping Doll

A Novel

By: Jeffery Deaver

Narrated by: Anne Twomey

Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Ten years ago in California, Daniel Pell, a self-styled Charles Manson, was sentenced to life in prison for murdering an entire family: husband, wife, and two children, plus one of his young male followers. He is brought to Salinas, California, to interview with Kathryn Dance after he is implicated in yet another killing.

Things go terribly wrong during an interview break, and Pell, after badly injuring Dance's fellow California Bureau of Investigation agent and murdering several bystanders, escapes. The murder was just one of his many schemes to allow him to travel outside of his high-security prison - and to continue to kill on the outside.

It's up to Dance, aided by her CBI partners, a Monterey County detective, and a brilliant FBI agent specializing in cult mentality, to stop him before he kills again. Hungry on his trail, Dance enlists three of Pell's former female followers, now raising families and leading normal lives, as well as the one surviving family member from the initial killing. Only eight years old at the time, she was asleep in her bed and obscured by her toys and stuffed animals, prompting the press to call her "The Sleeping Doll". Now 18, this girl may have essential clues about Pell.

©2007 Jeffery Deaver. All rights reserved (P)2007 Simon and Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

Not Deaver's best work

This book doesn't stand up to the same level of writing as his other books and I felt Kathryn Dance works much better as a secondary character in the Rhyme series. Also the narrator lulled me to sleep at times.

Slow and boring

I love Jeffery Deaver novels. This was the exception. To many unessesary twists. The plot unfolds very slowly to the point of being boring. The reader did not help to deliver any sense of suspense or action. I waited all along to learn about the sleeping doll who barely appears and provides a single clue to the mistery. In summ I don't recomend this book

Very good

I thoroughly enjoyed this story.

The sleeping listener

the basic premise of the story had a lot of potential but there was way too much plodding drival about the main character that had nothing to do with the story. There were also a lot of subplots that never really came together and just distracted from the main plot.
Overall, a lot of slowness!

Okay, just okay

This was a book that wasn't painful to listen to, but it didn't make you really care if you finished listening to it or not. Quite frankly, I completed listening to it only because I paid for it, not because I enjoyed it. Which was too bad, because I love Jeffrey Deaver generally.

This book was scattered on what it tried to accomplish. I couldn't care about the characters because as soon as the book would start to make me care, the character would suddenly drop out of the picture. For example, the 'romantic' interest apparently had a problem with his relationship with Catherine Dance. I don't know what it was, because it was never stated and he just dropped out of sight. He returned in the last few paragraphs as an after thought, apparently just for a beer.

The main villan was into gratuitous violence, but I can't even say that I found him scary. He was boring.

And suddenly having a character jump from being a good guy to becoming a bad guy without any warning, without any clues to make you think or wonder, just a few mediocre pages on 'oh, yeah, the good guy was an evil doer', made me feel that even the writer didn't have any real interest in this book.

Like he said...

Not better than the Rhyme novels and the reader, as stated by a previous reviewer, is just so soft voiced that it's hard to understand or follow and it tended to bore me. Oh, did I mention that the story is boring as well? The "monster" is pathetic and the police work shoddy all around. This guy keeps escaping from public places in stolen cars when an ABP would have rounded him up in short order. And the kinesics based element is way overdone. Ok for interogation but analyzing everything and everyone you come into contact with is just too much.

Sorry didn't like and won't buy another with this reader or this protagonist. 2 stars only.

Bad Narration

I couldnt get past this narrator to be able to enjoy the reading of this book. I found myself daydreaming or simply not listening because this woman told such an incredibly boring tale, that I lost interest. I can only tell you what the beginning is about ( before I lost interest), some of the middle ( which I tried to focus on and get past the narration to enjoy the story. I spent the money after all..) but none of the ending ( because I never made it that far.). Still don't know what happened. I honestly don't care. I would rather not know than to listen to her again. For me, I am disappointed that I wasted the credit ( darn you little sample clip) and am pretty sure I will never buy another book that is narrated by Anne Twomey.

Not up to par for J Deaver

A slowly developing plot with little action and suspense. Considered giving up on it twice but hoped it would improve. Unsatisfied with the ending because there was no analysis of the perp and characters did not choose behaviors consistent with the personalities developed earlier in the book. Not typical of Deaver’s other excellent books.

.....zzzzz but but but

Jeffery Deaver is a good writer, of that I have no doubt...BUT... I could not listen to this reader at all.... the soft soft monotone is soooo soothing that it forced me, for the first time ever, to give up on a book in the first three chapters. A friend has told me the story is pretty good...but listen to the sample to make sure you can handle the ""voice"" though.

Sleeping Doll

Pure junk. Reads more like my elderly mother's Harlequin romance books than a mystery/thriller. What a waste of time and money.