While She Was Sleeping cover, While She Was Sleeping

While She Was Sleeping

Diane Pershing

It must be frustrating, or at least wryly amusing, for the authors creating stories, each obstensibly unique, to be shoehorned into ever more finely divided categories. In contrast with the comparatively straightforward organization of the mystery or sf genres (though I admit the increasing tendency towards series books in the latter, such as Dr. Who, Forgotten Realms or the granddaddy of them all, Star Trek is making sad inroads on what used to be strictly alpha. by author, or at least editor) I find all the romance subdivisions bewildering. It also makes for the suspician that since romance is marketed thematically, that it is purchased thematically, rather on a given novel's individual merits.

That's kind of a shame, because despite the packaging, such stories can be charming, such as this one in the ``Men in Blue: Love in the Line of Duty''. (Now I must be honest and admit I heard about it from a woman who bought it because ``it had a cop as a hero (which I just love) so I picked it up.'') It's written in competent, breezy prose perfectly suited to the heroine's informal thought patterns, which, after the previous, expensively packaged effort completely lacking in any kind of style, I fell upon in profound relief.

Carly Terry wakes up in a strange room with a strange man after an absolutely fabulous erotic dream, which turns out not to have been a dream after all, and no memories of the past several days. Nick Holmes' patience with the glazed eyed waif he's rescued the night before and who proceeded to wow him bed becomes increasingly stretched as she takes off with his cash, his credit card and his faith in humanity, but his detective instincts prod him to attempt to discover why a woman to whom he's so attracted can behave so erratically.

Luckily for the enquiring reader, though rather less so for Carla, enemies she can only have made during her blackout (as her life hereto was blamelessly boring) show up in support her story, as well as trigger her memories. Though attracted to Nick, his profession---he's a policeman, though currently on medical leave---carries certain unpleasant associations for her, making her unwilling to completely trust him.

That part of the story worked reasonably well for me. Less successful was the suspense subplot which, after two days of intermittant consideration, I finally realized reminded me of any number of made for television movies I watched during the late 70s and early 80s. (They may still be the same, but a college roommate who never shut her tv off instilled quite effective, if inadvertant aversion therapy.) For all I know villains may behave exactly as these did, but I couldn't shake that kind of improbable feel I associate with series television, though some of the novel's background, particularly relating to drug use and police procedural, shows more careful research than can be attributed to merely watching the tube.

Carly herself also mildly annoyed me at times, both for slight, though not unbearable, ditziness, and her habit of saying `Can you believe it?' far too often. And if Nick finds the possibility of a career change easier than I would have expected him to after some glimpses of the darker side of police work which provide the book's strongest touches of reality, then I suppose that can safely be chalked up to the limitations of romance convention. All in all a pleasant read. Two and a half stars.

Sylvus Tarn

Last modified: Thu Sep 10 23:24:20 EDT 1998

Sylvus Tarn