More than any of his three previous novels, in DreamerJack Butler serves up a mixture of "old" characters from his earlier novels, plus characters who make their first appearances here. Foremost among the familiar characters is John Shade, the centuries-old "vampire" protagonist of Nightshade (1989; see separate entry) who appears here as an undercover government agent posing as an author of popular spy fiction, and who has been assigned to track Dr. Jody Nightwood's work in dream research for a shadowy government agency. Jody, a "new" character, is a Little Rock native; she and her college roommate, Toni Archuleta, are partners in a sleep clinic in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jody, herself, is one of several subjects who are observed while they sleep and who keep dream diaries.

Jody, who has been seriously involved with only two men in her life, and who feels estranged from the possibility of...