Sleeper

PI Fish Pescado and Vicki Kahn #3

by Mike Nicol

First there is the killing of the minister of energy. Then the cop investigating the murder commits suicide. Fearing a conspiracy, the minister’s lover hires pi Fish Pescado to find the killer. Then she goes missing. And Fish is being stonewalled by the cops because …
… in the dark shadows of Cape Town there’s another game being played out. A complex one involving Iranian agents, the theft of highly enriched uranium, and the kidnapping of a top scientist. Ex-spy Vicki Kahn is bribed by her former handler to track the terrorists. The hunt is deadly and nothing is what it seems. A sleeper has been awoken. isis is involved. So is the cia. There is chatter of a dirty bomb headed for Europe.
And Vicki is so lost in those constantly changing shadows that even her surfer-boy Fish can’t find her.

352 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2018

About the author

Born in Cape Town, Mike Nicol was educated there and in Johannesburg, where he began his working life as a journalist. During the 1980s he moved back to Cape Town and worked on the magazine Leadership for a number of years. Towards the end of that decade he published his first novel, The Powers That Be, resigned from the magazine and began what he calls "the scary life of a freelance journalist and writer."

Reviews

[Andy – And The Plot Thickens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Private investigator Fish Pescado's new case is shaky right from the start. Caitlyn Suarez is accused of murdering her lover, the Deputy Minister of Energy. She hires Fish to find the real killer but soon afterwards she disappears.

Meanwhile, Fish's girlfriend, former spy Vicki Kahn, is drawn back into the murky world of secrecy and the State Security Agency.

There's a policeman's suicide, enriched uranium being secretly sold to Iran, corrupt government officials, a Russian nuclear deal, and even ISIS is brought into the fray. With double agents from abroad in the mix, Fish has his work cut out for him, trying to follow and untangle the various threads.

A highly entertaining crime read from a writer who I think is underrated in South Africa, even as he's celebrated abroad.

[Jenni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mike Nicol deserves to be at the top of the list of Thriller Authors in the world! I definitely think that he is now South Africa’s best crime thriller author. If you have never read one of his books I suggest that you start now, at once, after you’ve read the first which you won’t have been able to put down, you will be eagerly starting on the next one!
A really fabulous author with very likable characters and very current storylines! Five stars for this one💥💥💥💥💥

[Carmelita Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great read full of intrigue that kept the pages turning to find out who is who. Being a Capetonian the location names help to create a more vivid picture as you journey with the various characters. Love the use of local lingo and references which I suspect would be lost on a non-South African/Capetonian reading this thriller.

[Michael Stanley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Mike Nicol’s writing. His staccato language, tense plotting, and the nice and nasty backdrop of Cape Town make his books impossible to put down. Nicol’s novels just keep getting better. If you haven’t tried a South African thriller, try Sleeper.

Cool-cat surfer PI Fish Pescado and his ex (maybe) spy girlfriend, Vicki Kahn, have an up-and-down relationship – both always seem to be on the point of breaking it off. In Sleeper, Fish is thrown into prison and Vicki is lured back to her old spying role by her previous handler, so they don’t even spend a lot of time together. But they form a strong protagonist duo.

The minister of energy is murdered. His lover hires Fish to find the killer, but then disappears herself. A much deeper game is going on, and one that sucks Vicki in. At the heart of the novel is a ‘sleeper’ – an agent totally submerged under cover. But who the person is, and who the principal is, forms part of the intrigue. Spies, terrorists, a briefcase of enriched uranium, and the sleeper all come to a head at a farm in the Agterpaarl. There, Nicol delivers a knock-out ending.