Nature’s Soft Nurse: Sleep By C. L. Taylor

The book was sitting on the top of a filing cabinet, keeping itself to itself, when I picked it up almost mechanically, read the blurb and promptly asked if I could borrow it. You have to be alert to any opportunity when a new book presents itself and this psychological thriller proved worthy of my request. It’s a quick and compelling read which won’t send you to sleep.

The premise is similar to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express. A group of people are stranded on the island of Rùm. They have all paid for a walking holiday and all, it soon emerges, have a reason for running away from life, however briefly. While a storm rages, the river floods and the route connecting the hotel with the rest of the island is impassable. With phone lines and wifi disrupted, a murderer takes the opportunity to put people out of their misery.


Chapter One is a letter written by Anna Willis, the principal protagonist. She explains that if we are reading the letter, she is most likely dead, the victim of her stalker. Anna was the driver of a car which careered off the motorway, flipped over and slid down a bank.

There are emotional breakdowns and a lot of mistrust.

Two of her passengers died, one was left with life-changing injuries and she walked free, unharmed, physically at least. Steve Laing wants someone to pay for his son’s death and Mo, lying in his hospital bed and struggling to come to terms with his injuries, wants Anna dead. Her pain, meanwhile is ‘here, inside my head’. She suffers terrifying nightmares and debilitating insomnia. The guilt she carries with her ensures her relationship ends, she leaves her job and, believing she is being stalked by someone who wants her to pay for her mistake, she runs as far away as possible, finding work in a remote hotel on Rùm, an island off the coast of Scotland. You can run but you cannot hide, however, and Anna quickly realises she is imprisoned with the one person who wants her dead – she just doesn’t know which of the seven guests it is.

Keys go missing, one guest is found sleepwalking, another accuses Anna of stealing. A fall down the stairs appears orchestrated rather than accidental. A syringe full of insulin presents itself. There are emotional breakdowns and a lot of mistrust.

Taylor teases us with intermittent chapters written by the unidentified murderer and she weaves in several red herrings which increase the tension, as Anna, and the reader, try to determine who is to be feared. People are not always who they seem to be; assumptions made are not always correct and motives can be the best of reasons. Believing that by killing someone, you are putting them out of their misery, is a powerful excuse for murder but begs the question, who has the right to choose? Who can play God?

By the end, you do have sympathy with some at least and as the murderer perhaps tries to pass on the baton, the final touch is one with which the reader can possibly empathise

The characters are all flawed and not particularly likeable, yet that makes them more real. People who would not usually choose to spend time together, find themselves thrust into a highly charged situation. It soon appears they all have demons to deal with and do so with differing degrees of success. By the end, you do have sympathy with some at least and as the murderer perhaps tries to pass on the baton, the final touch is one with which the reader can possibly empathise.

With its claustrophobic setting, this novel feels like a locked room mystery where there are only so many suspects. The central theme is guilt with an underlying thread about how we deal with loss. Anger and a need to blame is linked with grief and sleep is seen as a means of blessed release.


Sleep is published by Avon Books