Eric Jerome Dickey's Gideon Series
Best Selling African American Author's Books Hard to Put Down
Nov 5, 2009
From Sister, Sister to Milk in My Coffee to Resurrecting Midnight , Eric Jerome Dickey has firmly established himself as one of the premier writers of African American fiction. Eric Jerome Dickey has built a series of books around one of his most intriguing characters, a hit man going by the name of Gideon. The chronicle of Gideon began with the intense Sleeping with Strangers.
Eric Jerome Dickey's Gideon
Sleeping with Strangers begins with the introduction of Gideon, an under the radar contract killer. We meet Gideon as he is about to kill a well known evangelist. The reader learns that the future professional hit man took his name from the bible as the evangelist lay dying in front of him. He assumes the name Gideon because his victim told him "Every man needs a name". Gideon agrees that every man needs a name others can remember or more precisely, fear.
Hitman Gideon Is Hunted
The story then switches to Gideon flying to London after completing the murder of Big Bad Wolf, a popular rapper, in Florida. He is on the flight to London to fulfill his next contract. As he flees to London, Gideon is unaware that someone has put a contract out on him.
During his flight, Gideon becomes more and more paranoid as he notices that each of the passengers on the flight stands out somehow. There is the quite woman dressed in black and the overly talkative actress traveling to see her boyfriend. There is also a man with a broken nose that turns out to be more important to Gideon than he realizes.
Increasingly uneasy, Gideon begins to wonder if the passengers are just normal travelers or killers like him determined to get revenge for the murder of Big Bad Wolf. The uneasiness he feels during the flight is something he can’t quite shake as he stalks the streets of London pursuing his own personal revenge.
During the story there is also a shift in point of view as the author switches to the perspective of the hit man contracted to kill Gideon. Unbeknownst to Gideon, the lives of he and the other hit man are quite similar though their motivations for getting into the same line of work differ.
Sleeping with Strangers is an intense, bold and fast-paced novel. Eric Jerome Dickey crafts a fully fleshed out anti-hero when the character could have easily become a flat, clichéd caricature. Instead of just being a character crafted only for action, we learn about his background, his personality, and his reasons for becoming a hit man.
Sleeping with Strangers ends with a cliff hanger that leads into Gideon chronicle number two, Walking with Enemies which will be reviewed next.
About African American Author Eric Jerome Dickey
In 1996, Eric Jerome Dickey left his job as a substitute teacher to pursue writing full time after the success of his premiere novel, Sister, Sister. The author went on to pen such best sellers as Pleasure, Thieves Paradise, and Naughty or Nice, among others.
Source
Eric Jerome Dickey, Sleeping with Strangers, Penguin Books, ISBN-13:9780451222336
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