Skin: A Novel (Jack Caffery Book 4)

Mo Hayder strikes again with a new thriller, calling on familiar protagonists from Ritual, DI Jack Caffrey of Bristol's Major Crime Investigation Unit and Police underwater search unit lead Sergeant Flea Marley. Having run into one another on a prior investigation that introduced the Tokoloshe and ancient African rituals called muti, the pair cross paths once more. While Caffrey remains unconvinced in the resolution of the ritual murders in the last case and suspicious about a string of missing local women, Flea is diving Elf's Grotto, a network of flooded quarries outside the city in search of the body of a missing celebrity wife escaped from rehab, discovering instead a mutilated pet. The spark between Caffrey and Marley is rekindled, although each is off on other pursuits in this novel, a twisted skein of false starts, apparent suicides and a family problem that sets Flea spinning.To add to the thrills, Hayder throws in a particularly dark figure, a surgeon obsessed with collecting the skin of female patients. Although his connection to recent events seems remote, eventually the focus turns to the surgeon's rural home and an ethical conundrum for Caffrey. Meanwhile, Flea has her own ethical issues, caught in an increasingly difficult situation and an uncomfortable contretemps with the brother who got her into trouble in the last novel. On parallel tracks, both cases are fascinating, bizarre and gruesome, Hayder never flinching from the details of human depravity and the methodology of serial murders. As their paths converge in a shocking ending, the author proves once again her genius when it comes to the dark side. DI Caffrey and Sergeant Marley are certain to meet again in another explosive adventure, but Hayder will surely line the trail with a series of gruesome details.The thriller is Hayder's genre, a clever juxtaposition of regular police investigation with the realities of the autopsy room and the infinite varieties of serial murder, none for the faint of heart. In equal proportions of mystery and gore, the banal takes on a new dimension when a twisted mind is at play- and there is always one behind the scenes in Hayder's work. Like a vampire hunter, Hayder is fearless in the face of human depravity, a connoisseur of the macabre, by definition ever an outrageous experience for loyal fans. Luan Gaines/2009.

Skin is an up and down ride. Having just finished James Doss' certifiably worst novel, The Widow's Revenge, I cut Hayder a lot of slack. But ultimately, this is not a satisfying novel. Hayder has written three stellar mysteries -- Birdman, The Treatment, and The Devil of Nanking. Her latest three books have been strained -- trying too hard to gross us out and tipping moral centers a bit past acceptable.For starters, no one will be able to follow this book if they haven't read Ritual (also not very good, though). There is simply too much you have to accept as given without the events of the previous novel. Secondly, even with the previous books to introduce you to the detectives (Caffrey in three, Markey in one), it's very hard to accept them as "the good guys." They don't draw much sympathy, and there are enough real good guys around (Markey's colleagues, Caffrey's pathologist) that we wonder why we should care about these two.Next, one subplot is so revolting that it cannot come to a moral or ethical resolution (and, tellingly, it remains unresolved at the end). Suffice it to say that watching Markey spend most of the novel trying to decide what to do about a dead body in her car's trunk is neither amusing nor terribly interesting. Eventually, the situation develops to a point where we have some sympathy for the detective, but even so the problem remains insoluble and Markey's personal dilemma doesn't feel likely, nor do we identify with her supposedly hard choices.Finally, there IS no serial killer. Since the other reviews have provided what I consider spoilers, I won't tread too carefully here. While it is true that the killer is collecting skin from victims, the killings themselves are not motivated by this but by the need to cover up his crimes. The killer himself, as another reviewer has mentioned, is something of a letdown, not because he isn't very interesting (I very much appreciate writers like Carol O'Connell, Val McDairmid and Elizabeth George for their insistence that serial killers are not, at bottom, very interesting people), but because finding and apprehending him is such a no-brainer.And tellingly, the last murder makes absolutely no sense, because it doesn't protect his identity (the victim knows nothing about his crimes) and he doesn't violate the corpse. The victim is actually killed by Hayder in a bold-faced act of deus ex machina. Which she then reverses -- the cheapest of fictional ploys, in my view.Hayder may have spent her capital in three excellent books. All three depend for their effect on a horrific and persuasive look at humankind at their worst. That's not much of an achievement; what made the books memorable was that she did this from a moral perspective that was completely free of sensationalism and titillation. Things went off the tracks with Pig Island, which kept the horror, lost the objectivity, and wallowed a bit in perversity. There was a lesson to learn from Thomas Harris' rapid degeneration into his own nastiness, and Hayder missed it. Ritual and Skin are headed in the right direction, but what appears to be left, now that the dust is settling, is neither compelling nor illuminating.I'll probably read the next book in the Ritual/Skin trilogy, just to see what happens to Markey. But if that book leaves me hanging, I'll let go.

The jacket notes for Mo Hayder's latest novel read, "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: A man obsessed with human skin." The part about family, friendships, and evil is pretty much on the mark. And "Skin" is indeed devious and disturbing, as we have come to expect from Ms. Hayder. But one of her most horrifying villains yet? Not by a long shot!I'll give the author credit: "Skin" is definitely a page-turner, just like all of her previous books. But compared to "Birdman" and "The Treatment" (both excellent), this new novel is ... well, rather tepid. The abovementioned villain ultimately comes off as a bit pathetic and certainly not fleshed out very well. Along the way are a couple of subplots, one involving one of Jack Caffery's colleagues and the mess her brother has gotten himself into, and the other involving that weird little ape-man, the Tokoloshe, featured in Mo Hayder's previous book, "Ritual."For readers who have never immersed themselves in the pungent charms of one of Ms. Hayder's novels, "Skin" is not the place to start, especially since the story begins just a few days after the conclusion of "Ritual." Instead, read "Birdman" and then "The Treatment." And if that's all you ever experience by Ms. Hayder, you can consider yourself thoroughly entertained. Compared to those first two works, "Skin" was disappointing. I'm being generous by giving it three stars.

Another solid read from Mo Hayder, featuring Jack Caffery. Follows on nicely from the last book Ritual, with Flea and her idiot brother. What Flea does for her brother, for me, is pretty far-fetched, however, this is a book - not real life.I liked the characters in this story, the doctor and his patients were interesting. I felt the whole book was a bit segregated, and could've have been a bit longer with more focus on the Doctor and what he was trying to achieve and why. I feel that the author was more focused on Jack and Flea, and what they're going through in their personal lives. You have to read the #WalkingMan series to get a good grip on what's going on with the Walking Man and Amos.I really enjoyed it and have purchased the next installment.

I'm working my way through the series at the moment. I absolutely loved the first two books. The third - Ritual didn't impress me at all but didn't put me off. Now onto Skin. It follows on from Ritual with only a few days in between, so you need to read that first or you won't know what's happening. This book is so far fetched and unbelievable. It doesn't seem to flow well and was a bit of a struggle to carry on reading until the end. It also seemed to centre around Flea instead of Jack. I will try book five next

I got about 33% of the way through and was still waiting for something to happen. It became clear that this isn't a standalone novel, rather it's a continuation of the previous book Ritual, which I haven't read. This should have been made obvious in the blurb. There was a creepy guy sitting naked in a room full of creepy things, who was obviously going to be the creepy villain, but a third of the way through the book and the cops weren't even aware of his existence yet.Caffery and Marley didn't seem to have any actual work to do half the time so wandered around doing stuff they felt like and agonising over their personal issues and obligatory troubled pasts. Marley for some reason decided to cover up a very serious crime to save her pathetic brother's skin (no pun intended), a side-plot which is *still* going on in book 6 (Poppet, the only other MH book I have read). Was I supposed to care about these characters? They weren't written in any depth.Anyway around the 33% mark I gave up. Weird things began to happen with no foreshadowing or explanation. Caffery fell asleep in his own house and woke up to find that one of the bads he was chasing had also been sleeping there, for no apparent reason. Then he went and met some unexplained character called the Walking Man. Maybe this would all have made sense if I'd read Ritual, but there is no point doing that now as this book gave away too many of Ritual's crucial plot details.I'm disappointed because after Poppet I thought I'd found a writer worth following in MH. Not on this evidence.

I'm surprised to see so many lukewarm reviews for this book because I really enjoyed it.As others have said, it follows on directly from the previous book 'Ritual' and you do really need to have read 'Ritual' to make proper sense of this one as there is no real summary of previous events.I liked 'Skin' because it wasn't at all predictable. In the beginning there are several strands to the plot that all seem quite separate but gradually they become linked together. I particularly liked the subplot involving Flea, although it did seem a little far fetched that a police officer would behave the way she did even to protect a family member. I enjoyed 'Skin' more than 'Ritual', the only thing I didn't really like was that there wasn't much explanation as to why the main protagonist did the things he did.Others have commented that they didn't like the appearance of the Walking Man in this or the previous book but I found this quite intriguing and am looking forward to seeing how it develops in later novels.Overall this is an original and rather dark crime thriller, best read after 'Ritual'.

I didn't enjoy this book as much as others in the series. The reason for the crime seemed a bit weak, but then I suppose real crimes are committed for hardly any reason at all but from this author we have come to expect spectacular storylines. It was however for me, a link to the next in the series which was a great read. Having said all this, it was still imaginative and different, tied up some loose ends and developed relationships whilst ending others.