The Skeleton Man

by Jay Bennett

Ray accepts his uncle's generosity, never suspecting he'll become trapped in a web of terror....

Ray Bond's Uncle Ed had always been a shadowy figure, with little interest in his nephew. On Ray's eighteenth birthday, Ed gives him thirty thousand dollars in cash. He makes Ray swear he'll never tell where he got it.

The next day Uncle Ed leaps from the twelfth floor of his midtown hotel.

Stunned, Ray keeps his promise and withholds his secret from his grieving mother and Laurie, his girlfriend. Keeping his word is harder when he hears from Uncle Ed's girlfriend, Alice Cobb. She tells him about Ed's gambling debts and her conviction that his uncle didn't jump, but was pushed from the window.

Ray also hears from Albert Dawson, the sadistic thug who may be responsible for Ed's death. He tells Ray that Ed owed him money. Furthermore, he knows where that money is. Ray senses Dawson is not the kind of guy to cross, not if you value your life....

Genres: Horror

128 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 1986

About the author

Jay Bennett (born in New York City, December 24, 1912, died June 27, 2009 in Cherry Hill, NJ) was an American author and two-time winner of the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Bennett won the Edgar for Best Juvenile novel in 1974 and 1975, for The Long Black Coat (Delacorte Press) and The Dangling Witness (Delacorte Press), respectively. He was the first author to win an Edgar in consecutive years. A third book, The Skeleton Man (Franklin Watts), was nominated in 1987. Bennett is best known among English teachers and young adults for these and other juvenile mysteries, like Deathman, Do Not Follow Me (Scholastic).

Reviews

[Miranda Mayo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an okay mystery! Not totally predictable which was nice. Also a very quick read.

[Mathew Wright · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was absolutely

[Tamia Johnson-Buley · Rating 5 out of 5]

i really like this book it had a lot of interesting points and made me very courious and there were alot of shocking and sad parts this book is full of suspense it keeps you on the edge of your seat its something that you want to read over and over you start to have simpathy for these characters this book is very interesting i really injoyed it alot it totally had my attention fully grabbed its something that i would read again.

[Megan]

This book was OK. There was a lot of mystery about it but until the end it kind of surprised me about what happend. I was also upset when some of my favorite characters die in this book. It was a fast and easy read, I enjoyed it.

[Storm · Rating 1 out of 5]

This short story was hard to read, not because of the language, but it was just very much a start-stop-start kind of thing, it didn't flow at all. Simple enough story though.

[Richard L. Haas III · Rating 4 out of 5]

It had symbols; it had mystery; it was surprisingly really good. I read it for an assignment in my Upper Level Reading credit class and felt sometimes it was hard to understand. Like I wondered what happened to Ray's girlfriend and I didn't even realize that Alice Cobb had died. Looking back on this, I remember ironically liking it more than the librarian "teaching" it to me.