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Sweet Dreams
Kate McGraw, the lone female on the US Marshals' fugitive task force, is on the trail of homicidal bank robber when she is shot by a drugged-up ex-con. While she is in the hospital recuperating, a mysterious stranger leaves a bouquet of flowers in her room. Days later Kate is discharged. Still recuperating, she sees a man in a car parked on the street watching her apartment. This is the third time she has seen him. Kate gets the license number, follows and confronts him and discovers he’s her estranged father, Frank Galvin who disappeared when she was six. Frank tells her he’s been in prison for the last eighteen years, arrested for armed robbery. Indignant, Kate asks him what he wants. He tells her he can help her catch the bank robber.
As Kate and Frank try to rekindle their relationship, Frank helps Kate and her team zero in on Ray Skinner, the dangerous sociopath who has now robbed seven banks and murdered two people. Feeling the heat of law enforcement breathing down his neck, Skinner discovers the identities of the US Marshals who are pursuing him and goes after Kate. He wants to find out what they know about him. Filled with real-life characters and pitch-perfect dialogue, Sweet Dreams will have you on the edge of your seat until the climatic final scene.
As Kate and Frank try to rekindle their relationship, Frank helps Kate and her team zero in on Ray Skinner, the dangerous sociopath who has now robbed seven banks and murdered two people. Feeling the heat of law enforcement breathing down his neck, Skinner discovers the identities of the US Marshals who are pursuing him and goes after Kate. He wants to find out what they know about him. Filled with real-life characters and pitch-perfect dialogue, Sweet Dreams will have you on the edge of your seat until the climatic final scene.
320 pages, Paperback
Published April 11, 2023
9 people are currently reading
25 people want to read
About the author
Peter Leonard
50 books93 followersSon of Elmore Leonard.
Peter Leonard lives in Birmingham, Michigan with his wife and four children. He is a partner in the ad agency Leonard, Mayer & Tocco, Inc.
Peter Leonard lives in Birmingham, Michigan with his wife and four children. He is a partner in the ad agency Leonard, Mayer & Tocco, Inc.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 14, 2020
Thank you so much to Rare Bird Books for the advanced copy of Sweet Dreams by Peter Leonard. The book was provided in exchange for an honest review, all opinions are my own.
When the synopsis gives away every single plot twist, the goal of the book becomes fleshing out these points in a way that keeps the reader interested. In this case there should be action, drama, banter, relationship building, and mystery involved in the chase. When the bad guy is given we need something else to keep us reading, the how and the why and the danger. I honestly would re-write the synopsis due to the book needing to pack a few more punches.
The characters are a mixed bag but I like them so far. Kate is the first US Marshal I have read about other than John Sandford’s Davenport, which is what drew me to the book. The marshals have a level of jurisdiction and bad-***ery that can make for pretty interesting reads. Kate is sassy and young and holding her own on a task force that is essentially a boy’s club. The other marshals look out for her and I enjoyed their banter quite a bit.
While I enjoyed the banter, the lingo had me scratching my head. I think people familiar with crime/cop/taskforce lingo will enjoy this more. The book is filled with terms like “G-ride” and “primary” and “beat” and while I just went with the flow, I think I didn’t really grasp a lot of what I read at first.
I am also absolutely not believing how quickly Kate and Frank reconciled, their meeting was way too easy and while she needed him, it didn’t feel authentic or half as incredulous as I could imagine anyone would have felt.
The action keeps moving at a steady pace, and I definitely was able to read it pretty quickly. I was never bored, but with the synopsis giving away so much, the questions became: How will they catch Skinner? Will he hurt anyone important? What motivates him? These questions were all answered but it felt extremely anticlimactic at the end. There was a good build up so I was expecting a grand show-down and it just didn’t happen. Then the book seemed to just end without very much resolution. There was a second plot line involving a judge that was threatened and I honestly found that more interesting than the robber plot line.
The bad guy himself had a few chapters from his point of view that helped flesh out his background, but I never felt as threatened or as impressed by him as I should have, except for the part where the title of the book comes into play. That was pretty good, pretty creepy for sure.
I just think with fewer spoilers the book would have been a lot more interesting. I recommend to fans of Elmore’s writing, Peter seems to be following in his style. I might read a second book featuring Kate and the Marshals. If you are a fan of crime sprees and federal agents and books where the chase is the biggest component, give it a try!
When the synopsis gives away every single plot twist, the goal of the book becomes fleshing out these points in a way that keeps the reader interested. In this case there should be action, drama, banter, relationship building, and mystery involved in the chase. When the bad guy is given we need something else to keep us reading, the how and the why and the danger. I honestly would re-write the synopsis due to the book needing to pack a few more punches.
The characters are a mixed bag but I like them so far. Kate is the first US Marshal I have read about other than John Sandford’s Davenport, which is what drew me to the book. The marshals have a level of jurisdiction and bad-***ery that can make for pretty interesting reads. Kate is sassy and young and holding her own on a task force that is essentially a boy’s club. The other marshals look out for her and I enjoyed their banter quite a bit.
While I enjoyed the banter, the lingo had me scratching my head. I think people familiar with crime/cop/taskforce lingo will enjoy this more. The book is filled with terms like “G-ride” and “primary” and “beat” and while I just went with the flow, I think I didn’t really grasp a lot of what I read at first.
I am also absolutely not believing how quickly Kate and Frank reconciled, their meeting was way too easy and while she needed him, it didn’t feel authentic or half as incredulous as I could imagine anyone would have felt.
The action keeps moving at a steady pace, and I definitely was able to read it pretty quickly. I was never bored, but with the synopsis giving away so much, the questions became: How will they catch Skinner? Will he hurt anyone important? What motivates him? These questions were all answered but it felt extremely anticlimactic at the end. There was a good build up so I was expecting a grand show-down and it just didn’t happen. Then the book seemed to just end without very much resolution. There was a second plot line involving a judge that was threatened and I honestly found that more interesting than the robber plot line.
The bad guy himself had a few chapters from his point of view that helped flesh out his background, but I never felt as threatened or as impressed by him as I should have, except for the part where the title of the book comes into play. That was pretty good, pretty creepy for sure.
I just think with fewer spoilers the book would have been a lot more interesting. I recommend to fans of Elmore’s writing, Peter seems to be following in his style. I might read a second book featuring Kate and the Marshals. If you are a fan of crime sprees and federal agents and books where the chase is the biggest component, give it a try!
March 18, 2021
It's hard to read Peter Leonard without thinking of his dad because his prose is so similar. However, he does a very solid job putting together the story of a female United States Marshall who rediscovers her father fresh from prison. He helps her find a bank robber who cheated her dad out of $200K. During their hunt, they find a way to develop a relationship that wasn't there before the reconnection. It's a warm story and Leonard does a good job at taking you into seedy motels and secluded waterways where the bank robber hides. Very enjoyable read.
August 21, 2020
On some level, this book has everything one could want from a crime thriller. Bank heists, fugitives, murders, a game of wits between a criminal and law enforcement. Unfortunately, though all of the elements are there, they never seem to fully come together.
On the positive side, the book does have some genuinely exciting moments. Combined with its short chapters and the author's writing style, that makes for a book that will likely keep the reader interested and turning the pages through what turns out to be a remarkably fast read. It also possesses all of the elements I want from such a thriller, from the exciting action scenes down to the personal stories of the characters.
However, when examining those personal stories, we begin to see the novel's weaknesses. Based on the publisher's description, one expects to read a story about a father and daughter with very different backgrounds struggling to communicate with each other and repair a broken relationship while pursuing a common goal. None of this really happens, though. Instead, despite an initially rocky reunion, the two characters seem immediately to fall in lockstep with each other and seldom so much as mention a word of their past. Not only is it a missed opportunity for some real human depth, but it strains the willing suspension of disbelief to the breaking point.
In fact, none of the characters seem entirely realistic. Their dialogue is clearly well-researched and filled with law enforcement jargon (that makes for a realistic if often jarring reading experience), but lacks real humanity. Some of the characters do have their little quirks--both linguistically and behaviorally--but at the end of the day, putting those superficial elements to the side, the vast majority of them seem entirely interchangeable.
All of that would be perfectly forgivable in a novel that fits more in the category of "brain candy" than "respectable literature" given that the action is sufficient to hold the reader's interest most of the time, but even the plot itself begins to unravel a bit as the book progresses. The story follows multiple subplots (some of which seem to come and go without any particular fanfare or resolution) but focuses primarily on two main stories, one of which involves a federal judge and the other of which is exactly what you'd expect based on the publisher's description. Though these seemingly unrelated plots eventually do unite, the mechanism by which they are united beggars belief. The application of deus ex machina required to pull of this unification is frankly staggering. Fortunately, this element of the plot will be quickly forgotten as the book moves toward its climax.
One of the main problems many people will have is that the description on the back of the book gives away far too much information. In fact, the reader will be most of the way through the book before all of the elements exposed by the marketing have taken place, leaving fairly little suspense throughout most of the story. The only real suspense left to the reader is just how the story will end.
The climax is the final point at which the book could redeem itself. Sadly, it never quite does so. Characters are introduced at the last minute who seem to serve no purpose other than to lengthen the book by so many pages. Those pages would have been better spent delivering a carefully timed and expertly paced climax, but the actual climax itself seems fairly rushed, and not particularly realistic.
I really wanted to like this book, and I do admit it had enough interesting elements to keep me somewhat entertained while I was reading. Unfortunately, though, it doesn't really seem to offer anything to the genre I haven't already seen done many times before, and often with greater success.
(Disclaimer: I received a free ARC of this book for purposes of review.)
On the positive side, the book does have some genuinely exciting moments. Combined with its short chapters and the author's writing style, that makes for a book that will likely keep the reader interested and turning the pages through what turns out to be a remarkably fast read. It also possesses all of the elements I want from such a thriller, from the exciting action scenes down to the personal stories of the characters.
However, when examining those personal stories, we begin to see the novel's weaknesses. Based on the publisher's description, one expects to read a story about a father and daughter with very different backgrounds struggling to communicate with each other and repair a broken relationship while pursuing a common goal. None of this really happens, though. Instead, despite an initially rocky reunion, the two characters seem immediately to fall in lockstep with each other and seldom so much as mention a word of their past. Not only is it a missed opportunity for some real human depth, but it strains the willing suspension of disbelief to the breaking point.
In fact, none of the characters seem entirely realistic. Their dialogue is clearly well-researched and filled with law enforcement jargon (that makes for a realistic if often jarring reading experience), but lacks real humanity. Some of the characters do have their little quirks--both linguistically and behaviorally--but at the end of the day, putting those superficial elements to the side, the vast majority of them seem entirely interchangeable.
All of that would be perfectly forgivable in a novel that fits more in the category of "brain candy" than "respectable literature" given that the action is sufficient to hold the reader's interest most of the time, but even the plot itself begins to unravel a bit as the book progresses. The story follows multiple subplots (some of which seem to come and go without any particular fanfare or resolution) but focuses primarily on two main stories, one of which involves a federal judge and the other of which is exactly what you'd expect based on the publisher's description. Though these seemingly unrelated plots eventually do unite, the mechanism by which they are united beggars belief. The application of deus ex machina required to pull of this unification is frankly staggering. Fortunately, this element of the plot will be quickly forgotten as the book moves toward its climax.
One of the main problems many people will have is that the description on the back of the book gives away far too much information. In fact, the reader will be most of the way through the book before all of the elements exposed by the marketing have taken place, leaving fairly little suspense throughout most of the story. The only real suspense left to the reader is just how the story will end.
The climax is the final point at which the book could redeem itself. Sadly, it never quite does so. Characters are introduced at the last minute who seem to serve no purpose other than to lengthen the book by so many pages. Those pages would have been better spent delivering a carefully timed and expertly paced climax, but the actual climax itself seems fairly rushed, and not particularly realistic.
I really wanted to like this book, and I do admit it had enough interesting elements to keep me somewhat entertained while I was reading. Unfortunately, though, it doesn't really seem to offer anything to the genre I haven't already seen done many times before, and often with greater success.
(Disclaimer: I received a free ARC of this book for purposes of review.)
January 10, 2022
I listened to this audiobook. This is a pedestrian novel. Kate “Quick Draw” McGraw is a deputy U.S. marshal. She is the lone female on the fugitive apprehension team. She is hunting a serial bank robber dubbed The Shooter because he fires a weapon into the ceiling at the banks he robs. She notices a car outside her apartment multiple times and learns her stalker is actually her estranged father who served 18 years in prison for an armored car robbery. She almost immediately reconciles with him, which I found strange. Then he tells her he knows who The Shooter is. We follow Kate and Frank, her father, as she blithely shares intel with him. We also follow Ray Skinner, AKA The Shooter, as he robs and kills, and stalks Kate. I found the book to be poorly plotted. No depth to the characters. Boring.
December 30, 2021
It all worked and it all was written in a sound manner (meaning, the guy knows the language). He needs the kind of editor who can rip out a scene or more without damaging the structure - because there was too much plot, without reward. And
November 4, 2020
Kate McGraw is as good as Karen Sisco!
Peter Leonard is as good as Elmore was. This one is a genuine “can’t put it down” thriller! Great characters, great dialog, great story.
Peter Leonard is as good as Elmore was. This one is a genuine “can’t put it down” thriller! Great characters, great dialog, great story.
April 20, 2021
Her's getting his father's writing style perfected.
May 2, 2021
This was a good read. Lots of detail and kept me intrigued the whole way through.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews