Surprisingly good for a debut novel. It's not really a mystery, since you know from the beginning who the killer is, but it's a good, quick read that moves right along and keeps pulling you with it. The "average Joe" that gets caught up in the murder investigation is totally believable as a random guy in a boring life that just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I read it right after Educated by Tara Westover and was ready for something lighter (so obviously a murder mystery, right?!) and this fit the bill as a good change of pace. Recommended for a quick mystery-like story - I didn't realize till I finished it that it's the first in a series of one of the cops.....I would definitely read the next one. ( )

at the very beginning of this i wasn't sure about part of the writing - it seemed to me like bill cameron couldn't quite get in the head of a disturbed killer. either this improved as he went along, or i got caught up enough in the story not to notice anymore. otherwise the writing was tight and the characters and story interesting. i don't know that it was always believable, but i often find that true in these thrillers (from dialogue to the decisions they make. i don't think that skin would have done some of the things he did here, like at the very end wiping peter's prints off the gun; i don't think that ruby jane and peter made sense to get together when they met; and i'm not sure the relationship between abby and peter made much sense in how it was written.). it's a very portland book, and that was fun. except that the murder scene in the beginning takes place in the park that my 4 year old son plays in 5 days most weeks. it was easy to visualize all of it; he got the landmarks right. i think this is a solid first book and look forward to seeing what comes next. ( )

http://www.book-blog.com/2008/11/cameron-bill-lost-dog.html ( )

Not a bad story for a quick read but in the end I found Skin totally unbelievable. He has rearranged a crime scene to his convenience, simply because our protag would like to go visit his new girlfriend rather than deal with police interviews. The story pushed limits and in the end really went beyond my ability to suspend disbelief. ( )

I think you get extra points for creativity on a first book. Just two of the wow-that's-original elements in this noirish crime story are - our hero is a klepto, and his poison - and everyone else's, for that matter, the setting being portland - is coffee. Not whiskey, not beer...coffee!

BC, who hails from up that way himself, painted his town bleak enough that I'm amply put off. Not so good for tourism maybe but what a great setting: snow past its prime, brackish vegetation, wet chill to the bone, and a neighborhood just seedy enough to layer on the pure unpleasantness. Poor Peter - BC sets him up with just about nothing going for him and then spins out the psycho-killer tale.

As for that: it was a bit visceral and depraved for my taste, but I'm certainly not going to tell anyone else what to read. We're all somewhere on that spectrum. If you like a festering tale of psychosexual ruin then you're all set.

I have only one big issue with this book. (Well, and one little one - the words seemed a little clumsy at times, but I think a spin thru the rock-tumbler of continued slogging will render BC's subsequent books smoother.) It's this: Peter spends the first half of the book being fairly unlikeable. It's not his penchant for stealing, but his inhumanity, his lack of desire for human contact. The guy is just plain depressed and depressed people aren't terribly engaging. I mean I feel bad for him, and I want to believe there's a warm guy somewhere under there, but he's irritable and self-absorbed and his angry outbursts get in the way. He's in stasis and that is NOT a good hero setup unless you yank him off that horse just about on the first page.

(The foregoing also makes it hard to believe Ruby Jane's initial attraction to him.)

The second half of the book hums along better and by the end Peter is a-ok. ( ( )