Skin: A Novel

Mo Hayder

Feb 2011 · Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

About this ebook

A Jack Caffrey thriller from “easily today’s best writer of visceral and elemental horror . . . guaranteed to creep out even the strongest of heart.” (Booklist, starred review)
 
In her eerie and hair-raising thriller Skin, Mo Hayder trails her two unforgettable protagonists as they race to staunch a rising tide of blood in a sweltering port town.
 
When the decomposing body of a young woman is found, the wounds on her wrists suggest an open-and-shut case of suicide. But Jack Caffery is not so sure. Other apparent suicides are cropping up, and they all have a connection to Elf’s Grotto, a nearly bottomless network of flooded quarries just outside the city. Caffery begins to suspect a shadowy and sinister predator, someone—or something—that can disappear into darkness and slip into houses unseen. Working alongside Caffery is rough-and-tough police diver Flea Marley, but while pursuing her investigation, she stumbles upon something far too close to home that no one—not even Caffery—can help her face.
 
Skin is a penetrating dissection of family, friendships, and the evil that can tear them apart—or bind them together. Devious and disturbing, it introduces one of Hayder’s most horrifying villains yet.
 
“Hayder is not a subdued writer. Her characters are almost as chilling as the horrors that they are investigating.” —The Times (London)

Ratings and reviews

The book was really interesting. I read the sample then bought the book. It really ticks me of to get an incomplete book. I am not going to purchase the remainder of the book so I can read the conclusion. I like authors who writes series of books using the same protagonist but this is just one book that you have to buy in installments. Homey don't play that game.

About the author

Mo Hayder has worked as a filmmaker, Tokyo nightclub hostess, and English language teacher in Asia. She is also the author of Birdman; The Treatment; The Devil of Nanking, winner of the Elle Magazine crime fiction prize; Pig Island, shortlisted for the Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel; Ritual, shortlisted both for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award and for the coveted Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award; Skin; and Gone; as well as the winner of the 2011 Crime Writers' Association Dagger in the Library award for outstanding body of work. She lives in England.