This novel, by Thomas Mogford, irritated me so frequently that I almost did something I almost never do: toss it aside before completing it.  I didn’t, but that says more about my persistence or stubbornness than it does about the book.  The problem is the writing: the plodding, lifeless prose, the abundance of clichés, the sheer triteness of it all.  OK, I get it.   No one picks up a detective novel and expects great writing, right?  Well, to use a well-worn phrase that Mr. Mogford would probably be unable to resist, I beg to differ.  There are plenty of novelists working in the genre who write beautifully.  Benjamin Black, for example, or Susan Hill, or the incomparable John Le Carré.  Here, even the plot, the ingredient that rescues most mystery fiction, was dull and predictable. Sleeping Dogs did something so few books do.  Something unforgivable.  It wasted my time.