The first page featured below is from Mo Hayder's book SKIN (Random House, 2009.)

The author uses the technique of presenting some interesting facts in a voice that could be used to lecture students doing a medical course. However, everything changes in the third paragraph... and if you're the kind of reader that loves thrillers and mysteries, you're hooked!

SKIN by Mo Hayder
Chapter 1

Human skin is an organ. The biggest organ in the body, it comprises the dermis, the epidermis and a subcutaneous fatty layer. If it were to be removed intact and spread out it would cover an area just under two square metres. It has weight too: with all that protein and adherent fat, it has enormous bulk. The skin of a healthy adult male would weight ten to fifteen kilos, depending on his size. The same as a large toddler.

The skin of a woman, on the other hand, would weigh marginally less. It would cover a smaller area too.

Most middle-aged men, even the ones who live alone in a remote part of Somerset, wouldn't have given any thought to what a woman would look like without her skin. Neither would they have cause to wonder what her skin would look like stretched and pinned out on a workbench.

But, then, most men are not like this man.

This man is a different sort of person altogether.