Someone Else's Skin (D.I. Marnie Rome 1): Winner of the Crime Novel of the Year (D.I. Marnie Rome)

by Sarah Hilary

Winner of the Theakston's 2015 Crime Novel of the Year, and a 2014 Richard and Judy Book Club pick.Devastating and brilliant, Sarah Hilary's SOMEONE ELSE'S SKIN has been acclaimed as 'stunning' by Mark Billingham and 'superbly disturbing' by the Observer.

Some secrets keep you safe, others will destroy you...

Detective Inspector Marnie Rome. Dependable; fierce; brilliant at her job; a rising star in the ranks. Everyone knows how Marnie fought to come back from the murder of her parents, but very few know what is going on below the surface. Because Marnie has secrets she won't share with anyone.

But then so does everyone. Certainly those in the women's shelter Marnie and Detective Sergeant Noah Jake visit on that fateful day. The day when they arrive to interview a resident, only to find one of the women's husbands, who shouldn't have been there, lying stabbed on the floor.

As Marnie and Noah investigate the crime further, events begin to spiral and the violence escalates. Everyone is keeping secrets, some for survival and some, they suspect, to disguise who they really are under their skin.

Now, if Marnie is going to find the truth she will have to face her own demons head on. Because the time has come for secrets to be revealed...

• ISBN10: 1472207688
• ISBN13: 9781472207685
• Publish Date: 27 February 2014
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 29 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Headline Publishing Group
• Imprint: Headline Book Publishing
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leah]

I always love discovering new crime authors, especially as I am enjoying the genre more and more – the more new reads I find, the more new authors I discover and there are some cracking crime writers around! I picked up Sarah Hilary’s novel Someone Else’s Skin when I spotted it in Tesco and it has a delicious looking cover (not in that way). I love how the title shows a body inside it. That’s so cool.

Something I really enjoy about reading crime novels is the fact the leading characters are usually women, and strong women at that. I love reading about a woman who knows how to handle herself and DI Marnie Rome can certainly do that, having suffered one of the worst losses a person can suffer. She knows her stuff and I think that what she went through five years previous has only made her stronger, and I liked the glimpses we got of what happened five years ago. I suspect there’s more to come as the series progresses, too. It’s a back story that’s nicely bubbling away.

The main plot is really clever, in fact it’s one or two plots that some how become linked. DI Marnie Rome and DS Noah Jake are headed to a woman’s refuge to interview a girl about her brother, and the attack he and her brothers gave her, when they walk in on an attempted murder. What follows is a twisty, turn-y plot which will likely leave you with whiplash and which had me grinning when I realised where it was going. I guessed it, yes, but I was still shocked. I was still surprised. It took me a while to really get in to the book but once all the plots started coming together, and moves were made, and Marie and Noah and her team were put to the test, I was absorbed. I couldn’t wait to get to the end, and I finished the book in a couple of sittings over the course of a day.

Sarah Hilary is a top-notch writer. It just got to the point where I couldn’t stop reading and had to know how it all ended! I love books that just pull me in without me even noticing it, until I can’t give up until I’m done; in fact, I was so glad I was reading this during the day as there was no way I’d have been able to put it down at night time.

My copy above has lots and lots of praise on it, calling Someone Else’s Skin impressive, thrilling, disturbing and for once the book lives up the praise and is all of those things and more! I can’t wait to get stuck into No Other Darkness and be back with Marnie and her team again. They’ve immediately become one of my favourite crime solving teams and I’m dying to delve more into Marnie’s history!