Beneath the Skin [Mass Market Paperback]

Nicci French (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2001

Three very different London women discover they are being watched by a sadistic sexual predator, and become sisters closer than kin. As each woman receives threatening, macabre letters, each faces a horrible truth, and police must pry into each of their lives in hopes of finding the killer.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"When she laughs, she makes a pealing sound, like a doorbell. If I told her I loved her, she would laugh at me like that. She would think I was not serious. That is what women do. They turn what is serious and big into a small thing, a joke. Love is not a joke. It is a matter of life and death. One day, soon, she will understand that."

Zoe, a pretty blond schoolteacher. Jenny, a former hand model turned model wife and mother. Nadia, an irrepressible free spirit who entertains at children's parties. Three women living in different parts of London, grappling with different problems, sheltering different dreams--their lives and narratives linked only by the singular madness of a sadistic stalker. As they move slowly through the sweltering heat of summer, someone is sending these women letters that let each know she is being watched, studied, and loved from afar--even unto death.

Beneath the Skin is a spooky, highly effective psychological thriller. Initially, the women refuse, as do the police, to take the threats seriously--they are happy, they are inviolable; surely these letters are the work of a harmless crank. But the novel watches Zoe, Nadia, and Jenny move from blithely insouciant denial, to frustration, to creeping terror, and finally to the stark realization that neither they nor anyone else will prevent this killer from destroying them. French skillfully evokes the insidiousness with which the letters invade the women's lives, straining and shattering relationships, pushing each toward fearful insanity. Perhaps the novel's greatest appeal lies in its mordant irony: not only do the stalker's threats push and fester "beneath the skin," but they also draw out the flaws and terrors that are already there. French sketches the women's weaknesses and fears with merciless accuracy, stripping them naked long before the killer arrives to finish what his letters have begun.

The author's talent for psychological portraiture is, in fact, so great as to undermine, however slightly, the novel itself. We become so aware of the women, of their responses, of their needs, that the actual murders arrive as an almost superfluous intrusion. We respect the demands of the genre--a thriller needs thrills, after all--but wistfully regret the loss of the victims, even as we guiltily acknowledge our own voyeuristic culpability in their disintegration. --Kelly Flynn --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

French delivers a powerfully intricate follow-up to her first novel (Killing Me Softly) in this psychological thriller. Zoe Haratounian (a pre-school teacher), Jennifer Hintlesham (a former model and mother of three) and Nadia Blake (a children's entertainer) are all petite, uniquely pretty women. They also are all involved in, or getting out of, bad relationships with men, and they are all the targets of a murderous stalker who haunts his victims through disturbingly personal letters. The pattern established in the opening pages of the novel seems simple: a woman begins receiving love letters laced with threatening remarks; she notifies the local (British) police, who investigate and provide protection; and soon she is killed right under their noses. Told in rotating first- and third-person narrative stretches, the novel moves quickly forward as the women describe their growing unease and the stalker explains how thrilling it is to see his victims crumble under the barrage of brutal, eeerie letters ("She gets weaker and smaller. I look at her and I think to myself, I did this."). Meanwhile Nadia, disillusioned with the cops, attempts to solve the crime herself. By getting to know the families and friends of the other dead women, she discovers clues that lead her right into the killer's hands. The book concludes with a stunning plot twist and demonstrates, as did her first novel, that French knows how to carry a chilling situation to frightening extremes. BOMC main selection. (May) FYI: Nicci French is the pseudonym for a pair of British journalists, Nicci Gerrard, who works for the Observer, and Sean French, who writes for the New Statesman.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; Reprint edition (June 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446609781
• ISBN-13: 978-0446609784
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,925,066 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Up All Night Beneath the Covers, June 28, 2000

By 

"waynenf" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beneath the Skin (Hardcover)

I have been a fan of Nicci French's since reading last year's "Killing Me Softly", and was wondering how the author could top herself. "Killing Me Softly" was a chilling exploration of sexual obsession, and was one of my favorite reads of 1999.

Nicci French's new novel, "Beneath the Skin", is even better. The new novel deals with three individual women who are threatened by a faceless killer who sends each woman "love letters" which grow progressively more menacing.

Miss French tightens the suspense with each chapter, until you find yourself bleary-eyed after staying up all night to finish this exquisite page turner.

Each section of the book is devoted to one of each of the 3 women. Miss French develops each character flawlessly, until the reader feels as if he has known these troubled women all of their life. I fell in love with each of these strong, female characters, and actually cared deepy what would happen to each one.

Some readers have complained that Miss French reveals the killer at the end of the second section of the book... however, there is one additional shock that Miss French saves for the last chapter. This novel is thoroughly engaging, and will definitely make my top 10 list for 2000.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scary from Start to Finish, June 1, 2001

By 

Wendy Kaplan (Houston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beneath the Skin (Mass Market Paperback)

Husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French have outdone themselves in this really scary psychological thriller, which gives a whole new dimension to the crime of stalking.

As we follow three seemingly disparate women, each of whom is taunted by a sexually sadistic letter-writer, we begin to almost literally crawl beneath THEIR skin. We feel their initial annoyance, their reluctant acceptance that they have some kind of problem--and eventually, their bone-melting terror.

The novel works on several levels, as the authors carefully and concisely unravel the plot in the same way that the stalker psychologically unravels his victims. Our emotions are torn between disgust and anger at the inept police, to pity for the women, to almost unbearable suspense. This is the book you can't put down...the one you read until your eyes scream for mercy.

The authors' previous book, "Killing Me Softly," was a superb thriller; this one is better. And one of the things that makes it so is the lack of hyperbole. They write in such a carefully controlled way that it only serves to heighten the already unbearable suspense. Only once do they indulge themselves, in what has to be a self-mocking tribute to the 40s and 50s crime genre: "The heat was like a big old fat smelly mangy greasy farty dying dog..." That sentence is on page one, and made me laugh out loud. It was the last time I laughed...and the last time I could put the book down.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect, April 6, 2001

By 

Mark (Heerenveen, The Netherlands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beneath the Skin (Hardcover)

It has been more than half a year since i read "Beneath the skin", and i still remember the main characters in this novel as if they were real people. To me, this is quite unique for a thriller, as in this genre the character is usually subordinate to the plot. On top of this, the plot itself is original, as the story unfolds from the point of view of three victims of a stalker. The atmosphere is oppressive right from the start, and, as a good thriller should, i had a really difficult time putting the book away before it was finished. The Nicci French novels are among the best in its genre, and "Beneath the skin" is the best of 4 books by Nicci French.