Skin (The X-Files, Book 6) - Softcover

Mezrich, Ben

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006482546 ISBN 13: 9780006482543

Publisher: Voyager, 1999

Synopsis

A new original X-Files novel which brings FBI agents Mulder and Scully into contact with a new menace – one to make your skin crawl...

It’s a fairly common, if ghoulish, procedure: the ‘harvesting’ of skin from corpses for temporary use on emergency burn victims until their own grafts are ready. But when a team of moonlighting medical students accidentally takes skin from the wrong donor, the results are catastrophic: a New York City hospital ward is destroyed in a psychotic bloodbath, and an elderly professor, admitted for a routine skin graft, is suddenly the city’s most wanted fugitive.

Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are the only ones to suspect something more ominous than a medical procedure gone awry. While the police hunt the fleeing professor, Mulder and Scully track the skin that was mistakenly grafted onto him. The trail leads from the morgue to the headquarters of a cutting-edge biotech company. Soon they are in Thailand, searching the jungles for an abandoned MASH Unit, where hundreds of napalm victims were treated with an amazing recovery rate – even though none of them ever returned to their families. Finally, they begin to uncover an unholy and totally deniable alliance between a battle-trained plastic surgeon, international politicians, and a legendary Thai monster known as the ‘Skin-Eater’.

About this title

Review:

Skin has an authentic X-Files feel to it--the right mixture of scientific plausibility and mystical overtones to keep both Scully and Mulder interested and on the trail. Skin taken from an unknown body found at the site of a road accident is grafted over the burns suffered by a mild-mannered professor who then goes berserk, killing a nurse. Mulder and Scully try to trace the source of the skin graft and uncover links with a biotech company called Fibrol International, whose deceased CEO, Emile Paladin, was in charge of a MASH unit in a village in Thailand during the Vietnam War. Travelling to the remote village, Mulder is intrigued to learn about a local cult worshipping a mythical monster, the Gin-Korng-Pew, or Skin Eater. Meanwhile, Scully follows more prosaic leads in search of Paladin's reclusive brother.

Mezrich's descriptions of medical procedures feel authentic and he keeps the story moving along at a good pace, with several dangerous moments for both Mulder and Scully and a significant body count amongst the witnesses. The mixture of FBI investigation, horror and the occult, with overtones of paranoia about the activities of the military, should appeal to X-Files fans, while others may enjoy it as an entertaining adventure. --Liz Sourbut

Review:

"Mezrich drives the story steadily forward... [and] satisfies all expectations of suspense, ghoulishness, and general creepiness any fan might have." Booklist"

About this edition

• Publisher: Voyager
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0006482546
• ISBN 13: 9780006482543
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272