The Nightmare File

Description for THE NIGHTMARE FILE by Jack Livingston:

He had hoisted himself up on the pillows as if he had been drawing himself up to ward off something---something in his sleep. He was on his side, with one arm under him and the other stretched out and hanging down toward the floor. And his face---his face---his face had a look of fright, of terror, of rage---so many things….He looked---and this is exactly how he looked---like a man who had been frightened to death. It wasn’t a look I hadn’t seen before. I’d seen him wake up from nightmares before---looking like that.”

Evie Listing believes her husband’s death in his sleep to be suspicious enough for her to call in private detective Joe Binney. And Joe, despite being plagued by a sudden and vicious ear infection that is a vestige of the accident that left him profoundly deaf, agrees to investigate his friend’s death.

But beyond the dramatic nature of Gene Listing’s death, there seems little to go on: Gene, a specialist in Asian Studies, had been in chare fo the foreign affairs desk at a large business magazine; his only foible seemed to be his violent reaction to a new office policy of no smoking.

But Joe begins to look into Gene’s recent activities, from his attempts to stop smoking and take up the exercise program insisted upon by the executives at BusiNews to his obsession with an obscure story about Hmuong tribesmen in Southeast Asia reported to die in their sleep, apparently in the throes of violent nightmares. Gradually, Joe finds himself sucked into a case whose international proportions are staggering---even to the world-weary detective---and which threatens not only his own life, but that of his devoted secretary, Edna.

Jack Livingston’s first two Joe Binney novels established him as a distinguished author of suspense, and this complex and involving tale demonstrates once again that he is a master of character and action.

This is #3 in A Joe Binney Novel.