Under Their Skin

by Dinah Lee Küng

The Geneva laser clinic of Dr. Roman Micheli is as discreet as a Swiss bank—no matter who the patient, Roman is the dispassionate professional. His wife Isabel, a WHO leprologist, is even more dedicated to her work than Roman.

But the Michelis' technically perfect partnership unravels when an American violinist strides onto a concert stage and weaves the audience into her musical spell. The doctor strains from his seat to diagnose the purple birthmark marring this virtuoso’s beauty. The science of Roman's laser could transform this girl's future. He doesn't realize the ephemeral art of Mira's music threatens his.

A mordant comedy featuring chronic misunderstandings, lost opportunities, well-meant bungling, misplaced passions and fatal cultural confusion—in "Under Their Skin," nobody perceives what lies beneath the surface of our everyday actions and their unexpected consequences.

339 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2006

About the author

Küng worked for twenty years as a reporter in Asia for The Economist, BusinessWeek, the International Herald Tribune and the Washington Post. The author of six novels and a number of plays, Küng lives in Switzerland.

Reviews

[Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very dry humor, very richly layered and very keen, careful observations, with some of the best descriptions of classical music in performance I've read since Vikram Seths' An Equal Music. I'm sorry to see this getting confused with 'romance' in the Harlequin sense, with all respect to romance fans, because although this is a romantic story, it reads at a more literary, slow pace. A 'cool' and 'cerebral' book with subtle wit. The ending is a tad rushed, so one star off only.