Someone Else's Skin

Someone Else's Skin introduces Detective Inspector Marnie Rome and her partner DS Noah Jake in a domestic violence case that explodes outward from a women's shelter in London. When Hope Proctor stabs her abusive husband in apparently clear self-defense, the contradictory witness accounts and the question of how he got inside a secure facility make the case complex. Sarah Hilary builds her first novel around the overlap between Marnie's professional investigation and her own closely guarded past, giving the procedural its emotional charge.

Justine Eyre narrates with the controlled intelligence the dual-layer investigation demands. Her voice for Marnie carries the careful professional composure of a detective with things to hide, and her rendering of the shelter's community of damaged women gives the novel's human stakes their proper weight. The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award reflects the debut's exceptional quality. At just under eleven hours the audiobook honors a standout new series.