No Sleep Till Wonderland

While somewhat derivative of Hitchcock, Tremblay’s second novel featuring South Boston PI Mark Genevich improves enough on the first, The Little Sleep (2009), to suggest that the unusual hero—a narcoleptic sleuth subject to unpredictable blackouts—can sustain a series. Genevich is scraping the bottom of the barrel after one of his frequent screwups leads to his following the wrong woman on what should have been a straightforward investigation of marital infidelity, a goof that leads his client, an investment company CEO, to consider suing him. Genevich gets another opportunity from a fellow member of the group therapy sessions his mother forces him to attend, who asks him to protect a female bartender from a stalker. That assignment winds up placing Genevich on the police radar as an arson suspect. The plot twists satisfy more than surprise, but the clever writing will keep readers turning the pages. (Feb.)