Under the Skin

by James Carlos Blake

Book Overview

With his previous book, A World of Thieves, acclaimed historical novelist James Carlos Blake made a smashing debut in crime fiction with a thrilling tale of armed robbers and desperate lovers in late 1920s Louisiana and Texas. Now, in Under the Skin, he presents an underworld saga with historical roots on both sides of the Rio Grande. While much of the story takes place in Galveston, Texas, during the first few days of 1936, its real beginning is...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380977516
• ISBN13: 9780380977512
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Another accurate historical novel by Blake.

Blake blends his fictional character into an accurate view of history and involves it in the way people around the area remember it. Story is good, had it's own background and is quite interesting. Characters, both fictional and true, are well developed. So far everything I've read by him has had the flavor of the area about which it was written.

Elmore Leonard With Teeth

This novel by James Carlos Blake reminds me of Elmore Leonard but tougher, maybe a little darker. Set in Texas and Mexico, it is a crime novel with the flavor of a later-day western. Since Pancho Villa appears briefly in the story it can be considered an historical western, but why quibble? On the back of the hardback, there is a quote from The Washingston Post about another of Mr. Blake's books but speaking of his work in general. "He knows in his bones," the Post reviewer declares of Mr. Blake, "that violence is at the heart of American history." Huh? Did this reviewer skip World History 101? The bloody tapestry of European history, woven with pogroms, inquisitions, psychotic rulers, incessant religious wars and ethnic cleansing, makes American history look like a Manhattan cocktail party. What we are talking about here is conflict. A novel without conflict is hardly a novel at all. Conflict resolution is at the heart of any story. Mr. Blake has chosen the crime genre for his current subject and the resolution of conflict among gangsters is -- yep, you guessed it --often violent. If you like Elmore Leonard, you will enjoy "Under The Skin".

Good--But Not On Par With Blake's Other Work

While entertaining, I found this book too similar in plot to "A World Of Thieves", Blake's last novel. Both books, moreover, are substantially shorter than most of Blake's prior outstanding works. I hope this does not mean that we can look forward to Blake cranking out short, mediocre,and formulaic books in the future in order to cash in on his reader's loyalty (ala Larry McMurtry). Nevertheless, if you like Blake (and there is very much to like) you will undoubtedly enjoy this book.

Poetic violence, beautiful brutality

Is it merely coincidence that the anti-heroes in James Carlos Blake's ultra-violent passion plays are constantly crossing state lines, fences, deserts and rivers to reach their fates? Don't count on it. Mankind's greatest stories from Homer to Hemingway have required their heroes to cross perilous thresholds, from their safe, familiar worlds into a place that would challenge their bodies, hearts and minds. To fail is to die; to succeed is to change irreversibly.And blood is almost always spilled. Blake has merely elevated bloodshed to a fine art.Blake's newest contribution to historical crime fiction is "Under the Skin," a borderland noir about love and crime in Depression-era coastal Texas and northern Mexico. But the real borders it crosses are not just geographic.The bulk of the story is set in gritty and bohemian Galveston in the first few days of 1936, but it really begins 22 years earlier, when Pancho Villa and his most bloodthirsty captain visit an El Paso whorehouse and plant the seed of destiny.Blake was born in Mexico and raised in Texas, and is among the brightest stars in historical fiction, particularly where bad men make good stories. All his books have been set in the turbulent times between the dawn of Manifest Destiny and the Depression, wherever humans could inflict the most inhumanity on each other. "Under the Skin" is brutal and beautiful. Blake's savage crime saga isn't driven only by the body count nor its cold-blooded cruelty. What makes this book -- and Blake's others -- truly horrific are passages of pure poetry and the haunting beauty of Blake's writing. Few writers can skillfully blend the poetic and the perverse, as if the esoteric and animalistic sides of the brain shared an impermeable border. But as Blake has shown, borders are made to be crossed: John Gregory Dunne ("True Confessions") and James Ellroy ("My Dark Places") are among the most seasoned travelers to cross that particular boundary, but Blake lives there.His unflinching prose drives stake through fainter hearts, but Blake explores dark borderlands of the human spirit. He has rightfully been hailed as one of the most original writers in America today, and is certainly one of the bravest. "Under the Skin" and his other previous stories all have the seductive fascination of a beautiful song scrawled in blood.