Skin ( Jack Caffery #4 )

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, someoneor 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 onenot even Cafferycan help her face. Skin is a penetrating dissection of family, friendships, and the evil that can tear them apartor bind them together. Devious and disturbing, it introduces one of Hayder's most horrifying villains yet. From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Det. Insp. Jack Caffery of Bristol's Major Crime Investigation Unit looks into the case of Misty Kitson, a footballer's wife who vanished from rehab, in Hayder's chilling thriller, which picks up a few days after the grisly climax of 2008's Ritual . Caffery is distracted by the apparent suicide of a young man who he's convinced shows signs of mutilation similar to the victims of muti , the African black magic that figured in the previous book. Meanwhile, Sgt. Phoebe Flea Marley, a police diver, is busy exploring a series of flooded quarries in search of a missing woman, but her mind is elsewhere, too: the discovery that her brother, Thom, plays a vital role in Misty's much publicized disappearance. After two more alleged suicides, Caffery isn't sure if he's imagining a connection to muti , or if the answer is closer to home but no less deadly. Hayder captures the claustrophobia of Flea's dives in unsettling detail and continues to build on her two damaged heroes. (Jan.) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Starred Review Tired of all those lame vampire and goth horror books? Ready for something really scary? This is it. Easily todays best writer of visceral and elemental horror, Hayder handles her genre specialty in a way guaranteed to creep out even the strongest of heart. No Lovecraftian excesses here. Hayder writes about monsters that could be real, yanked from some dank recess of the id. This combo of police procedural and African mythology continues the story from her earlier novel Ritual (2008) and marks the fourth appearance of Detective Inspector Jack Caffery and forensic diver Flea Marley. The enigmatic monster dubbed the Tokoloshe is also back and intertwined into a murder mystery that may, or may not, involve the supernatural. What it definitely does involve is someone or something that likes skinespecially when its separated from its original owner. Thus far, Hayder has been too edgy to achieve widespread recognition, but this just could be the book that launches her beyond cult favorite to mainstream star. --Elliott Swanson When the decomposed body of a young woman is found by near railway tracks just outside Bristol one hot May morning, all indications are that she's committed suicide. That's how the police want it too: all neatly squared and tidied away.But DI Jack Caffery is not so sure. He is on the trail of someone predatory, someone who hides in the shadows and can slip into houses unseen.And for the first time in a very long time, he feels scared.Police Diver Flea Marley is working alongside Caffery. Having come to terms with the loss of her parents, and with the traumas of her past safely behind her, she's beginning to wonder whether their relationship could go beyond the professional.And then she finds something that changes everything. Not only is it far too close to home for comfort - but it's so horrifying that she knows that nothing will ever be the same again.And that this time, no one - not even Caffery - can help her ...