Separation and Abandonment

Abandonment and separation are treated as a major theme in DEAD SLEEP. Jordan Glass' father disappears while on assignment as a photojournalist when Jordan is a girl. He is presumed dead, as the last photo he takes is of a Cambodian soldier pointing a gun at him. Jordan Glass grows up unsure of as to whether he is dead and secretly believes he may not have died. If he did survive, however, she wonders why he does not return to his family in Mississippi. When Jordan's twin sister, Jane, disappears with no trace, she has a similar experience of feeling she is somehow still alive. This becomes the source of the character's drive to solve her sister's apparent kidnapping.

How each character reacts to separation and abandonment is a related theme that Iles threads through the novel. Glass never fully lets go of the idea that...