Skin by Roald Dahl

This is a posthumous collection of Dahl's stories, which were originally published in the 50s and 60s, and I found it to be something of a let-down. The big standard, "Lamb to the Slaughter" is included, as well as a few other macabre tales. But, for many of the stories, I found the endings either predictable or anticlimactic. It felt as though Dahl had left early drafts of these stories lying around, and after he died some precocious niece found them and decided to send them off to a publisher. I much preferred Switch Bitch.

That said, this isn't bad collection, per se. I was interested. There was a very clever story about poaching that kept my attention. Dahl still has that talent of starting a story with you expecting it to be about the initial set of characters and circumstances, and then altering the focus as he goes along.

I'd say that the endings were still consistently unsettling, although they were certainly less surprising than those in Switch Bitch, and I plan to get another collection for comparison's sake.

For the love of God, don't read the back of this book. You will know the endings to a few of the stories that otherwise would have been genuinely surprising. It is lame.

There isn't really anything else to say about this book, except that the paperback cover of it is eye-catching enough to prompt people to talk to me while I am trying to concentrate.

And that is my completely thrilling commentary on the book. Whee!