Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales

An old yo-yo serves as a reminder of a long-ago crime on a dark night. A jilted ex is the forgotten first husband of a Hollywood icon. A Christmas Eve murder casts a pall over a peculiar holiday gathering.

If you’re looking for slow-burn mysteries, particularly those that spend more time involving whether the criminal gets caught (rather than the classic whodunit), then this collection is for you.

Sleep No More presents six mysteries that feel like messages in a bottle, the distilled essence of a storytelling style from another age, with talk of boarding schools and lavish dinners with odd assortments of guests. (Only “The Victim” feels almost anachronistic in its modernness, given mentions of Hollywood, television, and so on.)

But James shines in the longer entries in this collection, offering up a peculiar plethora of details that make for a mystery with a grand twist in the final few pages. That James manages to pull this off more than once is a testament to the writer’s skill and imagination. It’s great fun, even if it feels a bit dusty at times.