Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Marie Arendt
Categories
Thriller / suspense fiction

THE GUILTY SLEEP

Jeremy D. Baker

A Thriller

No one gets hurt is a fine plan. A worthy goal. But when it comes down to the moment, there's always plenty of hurt to go around.

Afghanistan vet Dexter Grant is broke, reeling from PTSD, and on the verge of divorce when he's approached by his old Army buddies to help rescue their former interpreter, the man who once saved Dex's life. It means ripping off a vicious queenpin's drug proceedsbut not to worry, they have it all worked out. And if anyone can pull it off, it's Dex's former team lead, Staff Sergeant Saenz.

Tempted by an easy score that could make his own problems disappear and imbued with new purpose, Dex agrees to play his part. But just as in combat, the best-laid plans don't survive first contact with the enemy. When the heist goes off the rails, Dex's wife and daughter become targets for bloody revenge. Dex must face down his spiraling inner darkness and call on all his strength and training to save his girls. In his quest, he'll learn there was much more to this heist than he ever imagined.

Jeremy D. Baker bursts onto the crime fiction scene with this debut thriller that recalls C.J. Box's unlikely hero Joe Pickett and the small-town, lived-in noir of S.A. Cosby. The Guilty Sleep is a riveting tale of robbery and betrayal in which a father's love faces off with a soldier's debt.

Jeremy D. Baker grew up in Italy, Florida, and Maryland. He's a former US Army counterintelligence agent and combat veteran. Like Dexter Grant, he served alongside US Special Forces in Afghanistan. Also like Dexter, he's a PTSD survivor. Over the last 20 years, his work in national security has focused on intelligence, counterterrorism, transnational organized crime, human trafficking, climate risk and resilience, and cybersecurity. He lives with his family in Maryland.

Available products
Book Published 2025-05-06 by Diversion Books

Comments

Baker writes with such authority, every word is utterly convincing. And yet there are so many more layers to this story than just the portrait of a broken vet trying to put his life back together. It's also a heist novel, an organized crime novel, a war novel, and so much more. For me, it's the best debut since The Sympathizer.

The Guilty Sleep gave me Heat meets Triple Frontier vibes, but with the heart to compare to Lone Survivor and American Sniper. Jeremy D. Baker is in the vein of writers like S.A. Cosby and Eli Cranor, with dark yet honest undertones, and a protagonist who gets wrapped up in a world of pain under the pretense of doing the right thing. Expertly done.

It's propulsive and emotionally charged and titanium-slick, but it's the authenticity that sets The Guilty Sleep apart. Jeremy D. Baker knows of which he writes, and nobody writes it better.

This novel moves. And it cuts sharp and deep.

A flashbang of a debut! The atmosphere is vivid and dirty, the plot relentless, and the characters drawn with care and depth, even the bad guys. Baker builds an authentic world populated with a rich, intriguing cast that spans the distance between Afghanistan and home, war and peace. But his true triumph is his main character. Dexter Grant's tortured hero's heart, his pathos, his fierce battle to conquer a past that blackens his present all coalesce into the poignant centerpiece of the novel. I am fully invested in Dex's future and anyone who reads this will be, too.