MAMA WATCHMAN READS: STEVEN SIDOR'S SKIN RIVER

Skin River is the first novel by Steven Sidor, and before I had even gotten through the first chapter, I found myself wishing that there were more. I’ve been having a dry spell lately when it comes to good books, and I think that if any book could break the spell, this is it.
Buddy Bayes has left his checkered past behind him in Chicago and has settled into the small town of Gunnar, Wisconsin, near the Skin River. He’s bought and refurbished a bar, The Black Chimney, and is living a quiet, uneventful life, until the day he discovers the hand of a young woman who has been murdered.
Yes, this is yet another book about a serial killer, but somehow it doesn’t seem like the same old story. For one thing, the characters seem very real and almost ordinary. The killer, who calls himself \"Goatskinner\", isn’t just a one-dimensional monster, and Buddy Bayes isn’t some suave superhero. Margo, the love interest, is just a regular woman, not a supermodel. I found the story to be terrifyingly realistic.
As the story unfolds, we discover that Buddy has his own demons, and although we never actually think that he could be the murderer, the local sheriff has him tried and convicted in his mind. Buddy is forced to defend himself against the accusations, as well as enemies from his past.
Skin River made me feel the same way I did when I first picked up Thomas Harris\' Red Dragon, well before I had ever heard of Hannibal Lecter or The Silence Of The Lambs. That kind of delicious shiver down the spine, the not being able to wait to see what happens next, the knowing that possibly this won’t have a happy ending-- but, whether it does or not, when all is said and done, you will have experienced something.
Ah, yes... a good book at last.