I’ve read quite a few novels. However, when I came to the end of the book, Beneath the Skin, I didn’t seem very clear about why it would turn out that way. So I had to re-read some parts of it. Maybe I was not so familiar with the contents, for I didn’t finish the book at one go. Anyway, the final result was quite different from my expectation.

First, I have to say the author Nicci French is really a master of psychological description. It seems we readers personally experienced the agonizing process. First Zoe, then Jennifer and finally Nadia, they all received anonymous letters who threatened to kill them. The letters were full of details of their life---the clothes they wore, their little habits, how they felt when they were alone---and the promise that he would bring their lives to a violent horrible end.

You can imagine what kind of lives they led. How many nights they lay awake in fear staring up at the ceiling. That guy almost knows everything about you, even what is on your mind but he is just nowhere to be found. The police don’t help much. Zoe and Jennifer died one after another when they were under the protection of a policewoman.

Readers might feel a little oppressed while reading this book. But that is the selling point. Some readers like to have this chilling feeling. The human fear could go out of control. However, some guy, invisible but always there, delighted in watching these women suffer, thrilled by his power to destroy their lives and their faith in those closest to them, to leave them utterly helpless, alone in their terror and confusion.

All evidence pointed to one fact that the letters were written by the same person. Therefore the police naturally inferred that the murderer should also be the same. However, this general way of thinking led them into a dead end. Zoe was actually killed by her ex-boyfriend. There were some co-incidences, which made the case very complicated. We all tend to think without considering possible unknown accidental factors. But the criminal always leaves something of himself at the crime scene and always takes something away, as one person said in the novel.