The Sleep Room by F R Tallis

The Sleep Room by Frank Tallis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 2 days

Pages - 400

Publisher - Pan

Blurb from Goodreads

When promising young psychiatrist James Richardson is offered the job opportunity of a lifetime by the charismatic Dr. Hugh Maitland, he is thrilled. Setting off to take up his post at Wyldehope Hall in deepest Suffolk, Richardson doesn't look back. One of his tasks is to manage Maitland's most controversial project--a pioneering therapy in which extremely disturbed patients are kept asleep for months. If this radical and potentially dangerous procedure is successful, it could mean professional glory for both doctors.

As Richardson settles into his new life, he begins to sense something uncanny about the sleeping patients--six women, forsaken by society. Why is Maitland unwilling to discuss their past lives? Why is the trainee nurse so on edge when she spends nights alone with them? And what can it mean when all the sleepers start dreaming at the same time? In this atmospheric reinvention of the ghost story, Richardson finds himself questioning everything he knows about the human mind, as he attempts to uncover the shocking secrets of The Sleep Room . . .


My Review

James Richardson is at the beginnings of his career as a psychiatrist when an opportunity to work for Dr. Hugh Maitland opens up. Maitland is well respected and offers Richardson a unique opportunity to work in Wyldehope Hall in Suffolk, looking after patients with psychiatric conditions and 6 ladies in a sleep room. A room where they are kept asleep with drugs, monitored & woken at arrange interval for brief periods. At first it seems like the dream job however strange and eerie events occur, one of the nurses is behaving bizarrely & James can't stop asking questions.

This is a strange wee tale, it starts off relatively fine with James moving in, asking about the predecessor and learning what the job entails. Soon things start to happen to make James question if there isn't some kind of paranormal activity going on and wanting to know more about the patients. James has the task of trying to investigate without seeming like he has lost his sanity or annoying his new boss.

There is a wee bit of everything in this book, death, spooky happenings, relationships, medical chat such as conditions and drugs. It goes along at a decent pace, building up an atmospheric tension as the reader plods along with James trying to grasp what is happening. The end came along a little suddenly for more and I would have liked a bit more in depth explanation however I am one of those readers who always wants more, 3/5 for me this time, I would read this author again.

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