Rhyme and Company Tangle with Tattoos: Jeffery Deaver's "The Skin Collector"

The Skin Collector - Jeffery Deaver

Just when you thought it was safe to get some body art, Jeffery Deaver puts the fear of God in you. Could any other author dream up a killer so insidious, so calculating, so… evil as The Skin Collector? Probably not…

He prowls the tunnels and abandoned alleyways of New York’s underground, carrying with him the tools of his trade: Billy Haven, sometimes known as “The Underground Man,” does body modifications; although his recent clients neither requested a new tattoo nor survived their application. Perhaps that’s because Billy’s ink is pure poison – literally: hemlock, amanita, nicotine; all the “good” ones.

With a killer who can be anywhere, anytime, and who seemingly selects his victims at random; NYPD does what they always do: they call in Lincoln Rhyme. Unsub 11-5 proves a worthy adversary, however, perhaps because he has studied in detail the team assembled by the paraplegic forensic criminologist and their methodology. Or perhaps it’s because he has a plan; carefully constructed, highly detailed and chock full of surprises. Nasty surprises, not the least of which is… well, you’ll just have to find out, won’t you!

Longtime fans of Jeffery Deaver know to expect a false conclusion a few chapters before the end of his novels, but unlike most of Deaver’s forensic thrillers, we see the villain of The Skin Collector identified by name in the first few pages. 

Or is he? That’s the beauty of a Deaver novel, because (like Billy Haven) Jeffery Deaver has some rules of his own, rules that the reader would be wise to consider every time he or she turns a page. Rules like 

• Never include a detail that doesn't advance the plot, even if a detail has a serious delay factor.
• Nothing is ever as it seems.
• Nothing is ever as it seems after you peel off the first layer of misdirection.

As always, Deaver and his research assistants have spent many hours delving into the arcana of a new subject. In this case, it’s tattooing – or, as new character TT Gordon explains, body modification. There are brief dissertations on its history, explanations of the arts, even an occasional glimpse into the psyches of those who crave ink. One interesting factoid is that “Inking [acts] too as a barrier to keep your soul from migrating out of the body (the origin of the chain and barbed-wire body art so common nowadays on biceps and necks).”


Of course, Deaver liberally sprinkles his narrative with Billy’s inner dialogue, suggesting a troubled youth with some pretty weird hang-ups, though you ain’t seen nothing until you learn the whole truth (which is just one more layer of the onion that is Deaver’s many-layered plot). 

The only downer for The Skin Collector that this reader can point to is this: as is often the case with a Deaver novel, critical deductions that lead to the conclusion are only explained after the fact, which is sort of a cop-out (if you’ll excuse the semi-pun). In this case, the deduction is based on Unsub 11-5’s lack of knowledge of one fact, which is a little curious given that he’s been pretty much omniscient about everything else. Otherwise, this would be an almost perfect five-star book…