Skin and Other Stories
"'This is going to be a bit of a shock to you, I'm afraid,' he said."  With those words, Patrick Maloney seals his fate. He has no idea that his mousy  wife, Mary, isn't about to take his abandonment of their marriage lightly. He  never sees the frozen leg of lamb that hits him squarely in the noggin. And  he'll never know how tidily Mary cleans up the evidence--by having the local  police dine on the murder weapon! The late Roald Dahl, best known for children's  novels such asCharlie and the  Chocolate Factory, also wrote many wonderfully wicked short stories,  like the aforementioned "Lamb to the Slaughter," collected inSkin, a succinct,  darkly humorous anthology for teen readers. Besides the murderous Mary Maloney,  a host of other odd characters will leave teens gasping with surprise or  chuckling with guilty laughter. In "The Surgeon," Dr. Robert Sandy is given a  priceless diamond in exchange for saving a life, promptly loses it, then  recovers it again from the strangest of places. "An African Story" chronicles a  lonely mountain hermit's bid for revenge that involves a deadly black mamba  snake, and "The Sound Machine" describes how a wacky inventor nearly drives  himself mad when he creates a contraption that allows him to pick up noises  outside the human range of hearing. There is something for the naughty side of  everyone in thisTwilight Zone-ish compilation, a recommended read for  fans of Dahl's other teen short-story collection,The Umbrella Man. (Ages 12 and  older)--Jennifer Hubert--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.