Skin Lane by Neil Bartlett

Quick Rating: B

Purchase: Amazon

Blurb: At forty-seven, Mr. F’s working life on London’s Skin Lane is one governed by calm, precision, and routine. So when he starts to have recurring nightmares, he does his best to ignore them. The images that appear in his dreams are disturbing—Mr. F can’t think of where they have come from. After all, he’s an ordinary middle-aged man.

As London’s backstreets begin to swelter in the long, hot summer of 1967, Mr. F’s nightmares become an obsession. A chance encounter adds a face to the body that nightly haunts him, and the torments of his restless nights lead him—and the reader—deeper into a terrifying labyrinth of rage, desire, and shame.

Part fairy-tale, part compelling evocation of a now-lost London, this is Neil Bartlett’s fiercest piece of writing yet: cruel, erotic, and tender.

Review: This is the third book I've read that features London and its trains... probably the most haunting of them all.

A study of isolation and obsession, and love (or the absence of it). With a powerfully satisfying ending. Nothing turned out as I'd assumed it would. Thankfully. 

The narrator was pervasive, without the book would have lost its eerie atmosphere. Can't say I'd change anything about the novel, but the narration was incredibly intrusive and that level of self awareness made it difficult for me to fully immerse myself in the story.

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