Under your skin – Sabine Durant

English: Wandsworth Park Seen from the walkway beside the River Thames, alongside plane trees. http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/Home/EnvironmentandTransport/Parks/Parkscommons/WandsworthPark.htm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Under your skin is a psychological thriller in which a female jogger finds the body of a young woman in Wandsworth Park, only to find herself to become the main suspect and this event unravels her existence and life.

Gaby Mortimer appears to have it all: a presenter on daytime television, she loves her husband and young daughter, has a live-in nanny to look after the girl whenever she needs to be away for work, and a lovely house in one of the better parts of London.  Only that is the surface of the skin, underneath it all, quite a few things are not quite right.  Philip, her husband is distracted and she suspects he may be having an affair as he is forever away on one business trip or another.  She tries but there is never a conversation between them that makes sense.  Her new Polish nanny is distant and rebuts any attempt at friendliness from Gaby, and at work some of her colleagues try hard to undermine her.

Is she honest in the way she narrates to us, the readers, the story of finding the body?  Can we trust her?  Why is she so uneasy and forever making the wrong comments to people around her, her husband, her friends, the police, colleagues, simply to appear to be on top of it all?  Can she trust the police or are they out to get her?

Even if you’re not a great fan of reading thrillers, this is one that will grab you: it’s well written, there are no great holes or clangers in the narrative, characters are well-developed.  You wonder whether you feel uneasy because of what is happening to Gaby or whether there is something she is not telling us.

Definitely one to take on holiday or on a long train journey!  A good read and the end, the unravelling of what really happened, will make you gasp.

Advertisement