Bedtime reading

BB readers sent in a couple more pointers to books that could be on sleepless Fyodor Nesterchuk's nightstand.

Dan O'Donnell says:

Robert Forward – son of the late great science fiction writer Robert L. Forward – wrote a (now out-of-print) book "The Owl" featuring a private detective in Los Angeles who had a medical condition that allowed him to never sleep. This meant he didn't have to have a living space – just a small office for his secretary and phone. He spent nights by riding around the LA metro bus system musing about his cases. According to the author (who is a friend) this is a known medical condition, though rare. Link

And both Joe McMahon and Andrew Jankowich suggest Michael Gilbert's Smallbone Deceased. Andrew says:

(It's) a fun British mystery set in an old-fashioned law firm not long after World War II investigated by Henry Bohun, a solicitor who suffers from "para-insomnia." He sleeps for about an hour and a half a night so he isn't quite in Nesterchuk's league. In a more understatedly English way than Tanner, Bohun uses his spare time for reading and training to become a solicitor, statistician, actuary, and "almost a doctor" and also holds down another job as a night watchman to give him an excuse to indulge his passion for walking the streets of London at night. Link