Sleep No More
Eve Sumner has an uncanny resemblance to a long-dead woman with whom  John Waters was once obsessively in love. The successful Mississippi oilman's  college affair with Mallory Candler ended long before she was killed, but the  mysterious Eve knows things about that affair that only Mallory could have  known. That's more than a coincidence, since Eve is actually Mallory's  reincarnation—or, at least, she's the corporeal body into which Mallory's  restless soul seems to have migrated. Long before the bizarre denouement of this  supernatural thriller--a departure for Iles, whose previous thrillers have been  much more straightforward--the reader's sympathies have been engaged by Waters,  a decent man whose best friend may be his worst enemy and whose past may destroy  his future. Iles has many gifts as a storyteller, including ingenious plotting  and solid pacing, both of which are on display here, but this foray into the  occult doesn't show them off to best advantage.--Jane Adams