Review of Ted Dekker's Novel Skin

Title: Skin
Author: Ted Dekker
Publisher: Thomas Nelson, Nashville
Copyright: 2007
Pages: 395
ISBN: 978-1-59554-277-9
Genre: Christian suspense

Dekker begins his novel Skin with a woman named Wendy. Born into a cult, she had known little but their ways for eighteen years. On the day she was expected to marry the cult leader, she had escaped and never returned. Eight years later, the story opens. After receiving an unexpected call, Wendy drives to meet her mother, still a member of the cult Wendy had fled.

Before she can arrive at their meeting location, Wendy hits an empty truck cockeyed on the road. Two bullet holes through the front windshield send Wendy on a wild hunt for the driver, a hunt which catapults Wendy into a game for her life. A storm erases the nearby town of Summerville. Wendy and four strangers believe they are the only ones left, until they receive threats from a mysterious killer. One of them must die, he says, and it's their job to figure out who. If they guess incorrectly, they all suffer.

Wendy and the others seem nothing alike, but perhaps they have more in common than they think. They discover that beyond the skin of their world, a deeper reality plays out.

Skin is probably Dekker's least overtly Christian novel to date. It also has the least satisfying ending of any of Dekker's books that I have read. For these two reasons, I would recommend most of his other novels before this one. While Dekker weaves this story with his usual measure of compelling plot twists, well-fleshed characters, and engaging dialogue, he leaves out what I have liked best about his previous novels. Within many of his novels, Dekker communicates his insights into the mind-blowing love of God for us and our need for God. Any such insights in this book remain disappointingly vague.

Unfortunately, the ending brings no closure to the story. Although I am not attached to any certain type of ending, not even happy ones, I do expect a conclusion to the story. The ending to Skin is simply an ending, not a conclusion. The lack of a satisfying conclusion mars, to some degree, the brilliance of the story.

On the flip side, Dekker provides an excellent illustration of the concept that we are all alike in our capacity for spiritual ugliness. We're all equally capable of evil. This teaching, of course, is the only proper foundation for understanding and accepting the Christian teachings on salvation.

At one point, Wendy faces the killer and argues, "'We are all ugly to the bone and deserve to die. But can't you make something this ugly beautiful?'" (368). Predictably, the killer responds no. However, the story ends without resolving this issue. The killer's response is never proved right or wrong. This lack of resolution obscures the power of the story. As it stacks up against the ultimate truth of the gospel, Skin only provides half the story.

Dekker never fails to write a good story. But if I could only recommend one of his books to a reader new to Dekker's fiction, I would pick another novel.