Sleep With The Devil: Greed and Evil...And One Man's Ugly Passion

by Day Keene

Sleep with the Devil, first published in 1954, is a hard-boiled noir crime novel by prolific author Day Keene (pseudonym of Gunnar Hjerstedt, 1904-1969). The novel follows Les Ferron, a borderline sociopath who commits a series of crimes, has two girlfriends – one “good,” and one “bad – and a large amount of cash. The plot has twists along the way to keep readers engaged to the very end in this taut thriller.

Genres: Noir, Crime, Mystery, Horror, Pulp Noir, Novels

139 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Day Keene, whose real name was Gunnar Hjerstedt, was one of the leading paperback mystery writers of the 1950s. Along with writing over 50 novels, he also wrote for radio, television, movies, and pulp magazines. Often his stories were set in South Florida or swamp towns in Louisiana, and included a man wrongly accused and on the run, determined to clear his name.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sleep With the Devil is a great example of top-notch pulp fiction. It is the story of a small-time conman and loan shark enforcer who thinks he has the system beat and inexorably feels the walls closing in on him. Les Ferron is part Jim Thompson psychopath and part Orrie Hitt sharp-talking conman. Ferris has two parellel lives, two parallel cons, and a plan to hide out in plain sight as a bible salesman/ farmer in a Amish-like town outside of NYC. This book shows his psychopathic act forming and the hell left in his path. Can he hide out from the law in a different world and pull a longer con there or will his old life catch up? Murder, betrayal, deceit, it's all here.

[Carla Remy · Rating 4 out of 5]

12/2018

Very entertaining. I guess it is just fundamentally enjoyable to be shown the dark life of a criminal, to be involved (through reading/watching) with every "sinful" step of stealing, killing etc... and then be completely satisfied when the story builds up to the bad guy suffering and being punished.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sleep with the Devil is a wonderfully taut, hardboiled, racy crime pulp with one hell of an ironic twist. Churlish, cunning SOB Les Ferron is living two completely different lives, running two separate long cons, and is too ready to throw away what he has for some greener grass. I was on pins and needles to see which thread in Ferron's intricate web of lies and coverups was going to come loose first, despite his meticulous plans and efforts to cover his tracks. He buries himself so deep in his own lies and delusions that he starts to believe them himself, convinced that his terrible secrets will remain buried forever (literally and figuratively). Ferron is one of those lowlife pulp goons you won't soon forget. At first seemingly nothing more than a womanizing thug. Then, some signs of his cunning and inner psychopath emerge, and later some glimpses of a budding conscience, which just won't do at all. Somehow, you can't help hoping the bastard gets away with everything!

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

So just who is our noir protagonist in this tight little gem? He is Les Ferron, who describes himself thus:

And when her father, sprinkling his conversation liberally with thees and thous had asked him what he did for a living, what could he tell the man? That he was a part-time male model who posed for the lurid pictures in true crime magazines; that he was a bit radio actor and small time gigolo; that he broke arms and legs, and backs if necessary, to keep a nasty little loan shark’s creditors in line? Of course not.

In fact, he is not even Les Ferron to the father, nor to the father's daughter, Amy, to whom he is engaged, to them and all the other people in the Amish town of New Hope, he is Paul Parrish, bible salesman. The plan Les has cooked up is to marry (virginal) Amy and take control of her father's farm, and then once he has enough money, ditch them and head for the good life of whisky and women in South America. First, though, he has some unfinished business to take care of in New York city: He wants to kill the loan shark who'd employed him for the past several years. Ferron deftly shifts back and forth between the two lives and reveals himself in the process as a borderline sociopath as he painstakingly establishes his alibi and covers his tracks. He kills the loan shark and takes off with a suitcase stuffed with $127,000 in cash. Does he feel remorse? Here’s Les after reading in the newspaper that the police have arrested someone else for a murder he committed:

Ferron's laughter continued to mount. he beat the bed with his fists. He laughed until he was weak, until tears rolled down his cheeks. He'd never read anything so funny. He'd never been so amused.

You’d think with a suitcase full of cash he’d be set, but no, Les just has to have the (virginal) Amy (“Please teach me, Paul”), and that, of course, leads to his undoing, which takes place over the second half of the book. Keene serves up several roadblocks and ruses and temptations to keep things interesting, but the twist at the end is a doozy, not the one I think anyone would see coming.

Perhaps I’m just an impatient junkie of fast pacing, but it seemed maybe a bit slow at times in the first third of the book, so I’ll give this one 4.5 stars.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A real find, pure noir gold. The story about a Manhattan loan shark bully who doubles as a model for true detective magazines hatches a scheme to woo the upstate country virgin with the big bazooms and an even bigger inheritance waiting for her. If that wasn't enough larceny to please you he makes a play for the gorgeous black widow of the cop he "accidentally" killed. Day Keene pulled out all the stops for this one!

[L J Field · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2. This book was great until the last dozen or so pages. The main character acts completely out of character.

The story is a good one, though.

[Kurt Reichenbaugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably the best Day Keene novel I've read so far. We have a protagonist who finds a nice setup in a country virgin and her wealthy pops. He builds up a facade within the town, gaining trust and friendship throughout. Soon he'll be married to the beautiful girl and life will be a cherry pie. But first he has to disentangle himself from his violent past. And you know, things never go as planned. Excellent!

[Edwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Sleep with the Devil" fits in the category of narrator/main character that is unreliable, or that is a sociopath/criminal, familiar territory of works from noted noir scribes like Thompson, Willeford, and Brewer. This novel is as good or better than most of them. The fascinating Les Ferron character is cooly intelligent and painstakingly calculating, and very capable of recovering nicely when he does fuck up. Nicely plotted with a couple of great twists. The novel might deserve five stars, but I feel like I've been passing them out too frequently lately. Recommended.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

It doesn't get much better than this. I've read a few of Day Keene's books and this one is by far the best. Kind of reminds me of some of the better Gil Brewer and Charles Willeford novels. Here you have a protagonist almost devoid of conscience. It also had some elements of Davis Grub's Night of the Hunter.

[Josh Hitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a well done crime novel. Ferron is a small time hustler, model for true crime mags, and a strong arm for a loan shark. He has big plans, he was going to kill his boss and steal his money and marry a sweet girl in another area to get her daddy's big farm. Because there, an hour away, he was known as a Bible salesman who didn't have any vices. All his plans were going well, he was home free, til he wasn't.

Highly recommended, a great read that was well written and fast paced.

[Joe Nicholl · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the top of my list of fave noirs...could not put it down, read it in two sittings...about a scammer, a swindller who goes back & forth between NYC & upstate NY...lot's of absurd humr too...

[Dominick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a dandy, tight little crime novel. There's no mystery here, as we follow our protagonist, Les Ferron, and watch him commit his crimes. Arguably, there is no real surprise here; this is a typical crime book, with the conscienceless (well, almost conscienceless, anyway) protagonist, the "good" girl, the "bad" girl, the escalation of the situation as each time the protagonist thinks he's in the clear something else happens to throw him into peril, and of course the twist at the end, after he thinks he's pulled it off. Not too many twists take place quite like this, though, with the protagonist nailed just as he's about to get married. And the gimmick is a good one, if perhaps just a trifle too neatly wrapped. What really sells the book more than anything, I think, is Keene's careful construction of Ferron as (at least) a borderline sociopath, but with just enough complexity to make us almost want him to get away with it at the end--especially because he seems about to turn a new leaf. The novel's final lines throw in an extra ironic twist that give the whole thing an air of almost inescapable pessimism. Definitely recommended for noir fans.

[Chris Stephens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stuff!
grifter plotline,
some very interesting ways of using scripture,
no redeemable characteristics in the lead character,
pure scoundrel.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well Day Keene can certainly write a twist ending.

[Maheshika Rathnayake]

Not my type, was a bad read really.

[Marwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

i really enjoyed the book ! the main character was defintely smart !! and the end was so unexpected for me ! the book was really enjoyable

[Russ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story and impossible to put down. Shows how you can only play so many angles. Definitely will look fore more Day Keene