The Little Sleep is one of the most enjoyable and refreshing crime noir / mystery / private eye novels I've read in years. The story focuses in on one Mark Genevich, a South Boston ("southie") PI with one very large problem. He is a narcoleptic... falling asleep at the most inappropriate of time and even hallucinating on occasion. 
When a minor local celebrity comes in and hires Mark to track down the meaning of some scandalous photos, Mark's world is turn upside down and he quickly learns that the past does not always stay dead.Genevich is an amazingly "real guy" sort of guy. It's wonderful to read about a detective who is not all... "I have a 210 I.Q. and am knowledgeable about everything from classical architecture to medieval literature to particle accelerators. Please pass the rutabagas." Mark is human to a fault and it constantly proving it.
Tremblay's writing is also constantly intriguing. The pace of the novel, once set, rarely lets up and in any other time of my life, would have read this book in two days flat. Also, his anthropomorphic descriptions are always making me chuckle. As exemplified in the following passage, when Mark walks into his office after it has been ransacked:
"My flat screen computer monitor is not quite flat anymore and is on the floor, where my client chair used to be. That chair is huddled in the corner of the room, licking it's wounds. It saw everything and is traumatized. It'll never be the same."(pg.101-2 arc.)
That's just one small example in a book filled with everyday imagery that is brought to life through the author's unique writing. I sincerely hope that we will see more of Paul Trembly's work soon.
"People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like." Abraham Lincoln (in a book review of his own) (1809-1865)
