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SKIN AND BLISTER
by Victoria Blake
Orion, November 2006
320 pages
18.99 GBP
ISBN: 0752874594


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

I really don't know what to make of Victoria Blake's books. After three of them, you'd have thought I'd have formed a strong opinion. The best I can do for you is that there's something there to make you keep reading, but if you have the time and the inclination, you can pick enough holes to make a string vest.

If you've kept up with this series, you'll know that the main character is Sam Falconer, a former judo star who became a private investigator after injury forced her to give up the sport she loved. She is based in London, but seems to spend an inordinate amount of time in Oxford where her mother and brother are based.

So it's no surprise when she's summoned back to Oxford for a case that's far too close to home. A student is found dead after receiving threatening letters – and Sam's university lecturer brother Mark is too close to the case for comfort. Then Mark vanishes, and the family receives a card announcing a funeral mass for him.

Always in the background is the spectre of Sam's father, an ex-army man with a violent and bloody history. And now there's a mysterious Irishman on the scene who is desperate to contact him.

What you get in SKIN AND BLISTER is pretty much what you got in the previous two books in the series – uncommunicative Sam and her dysfunctional family, and not a lot in the way of characterisation among the supporting cast. If Blake could ever get the hang of consistent point of view, the books might be a lot stronger. As it is, the shifting around weakens the narrative and keeps us too far removed from those who should control the book.

Sam is the most unconvincing straight woman in the genre and this isn't helped when she unaccountably turns sex maniac. No, really, having her jumping into bed or lusting over the next available man doesn't persuade me!

The Oxford scenes work much better than those in London, although I suspect the capital city link is needed to show the distance that Sam needs between her and a place with too many bad memories.

But I was immensely frustrated at the end of the book when Sam's already unsteady life looks like it has been blown apart. We get too much tell and nowhere near enough show, as if Blake couldn't quite trust herself to get close to her main character.

It's easy to pick a lot of holes in the book. But Blake's got something that keeps you turning pages. I'm not quite sure how much more she can wring from screwed-up Sam and her weird family. So that'll be a fourth book before I can make up my mind, then!

Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, November 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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