Skin by Ted Dekker

Last night I finished reading Skin, the most recent novel from Ted Dekker. Another well done Dekker thriller! Dekker is a very interesting writer for several reasons, but one of the most unique things about his writing is the way it evolves so rapidly from one novel to the next. I never know what to expect!

That was especially true with Skin. It just didn’t go the way I expected. For starters, I was pleasantly surprised because the book description makes it sound like a rehashing of House, a novel that Dekker recently co-authored with Frank Peretti. I liked House, but I wanted Skin to be its own novel. It definitely was.

The story begins with five strangers thrown together in a small town through highly unusual circumstances. In the midst of a massive storm, a serial killer strikes–and keeps striking. For some unknown reason, he begins targeting this group of five and draws them into a twisted homicidal mind game.

That would be enough groundwork for a thriller, but Dekker takes it further: reality itself seems to begin playing games with these five young men and women as the story takes on a Twilight Zone quality. As the truth gradually reveals itself, we discover along with the characters that real truth lies just beyond the skin of this world.

One of the best things I like about Dekker is that he’s a master teller of modern-day parables. That’s really what his stories–especially the ones from the past two or three years, which are quite distinct from his earlier novels–are: parables.

I’d definitely recommend Skin, but with a strong warning: it is not for the faint of heart! The violence in the book would make it difficult for a movie version to escape with anything less than an R rating. But if you can stomach that (it’s gross and violent, but not excessively graphic), you might find Skin to be one of those novels that genuinely affects the way you perceive the world around you… and the world within you.