Light Sleeper

Nineteen-year-old Jay is content with his life, pouring drinks in the cool SoHo Bar in Kings Cross in the ‘90s, and dreaming of escape. But when his girlfriend Edie draws him into a seedy business, Jay finds himself slipping deeper into a world he cannot control.

With a disgraced ex-cop as their supplier and a network of dangerous clients, what started as easy money quickly turns dangerous. Looming over them all is a corrupt detective who rules the streets through fear.

When blood is spilled, and his friend, boxer Ricky Angel, is nearly destroyed, Jay realizes that he might not be built for this life. But will getting out cost him everything?

“Light Sleeper is raw and visceral. Sean O’Leary takes readers on a circa 1991, can’t-look-away tour of lives lived on the most treacherous of edges—the thinnest of lines that separates street-level drug dealers from the bent cops expected to catch them. This is a white-knuckle ride, the pages flying by as you charge on, desperate to learn who might get out of this dark, last-century world alive.” —Craig McDonald, Edgar/Anthony Awards Finalist

© 2026 Next Chapter (Ebook): 6610001290894

Release date

Ebook: July 24, 2026