Butterfly Skin
Author
Sergey Kuznetsov
Format
Novel, 2014
400 pp
Genre
Thriller, noir, crime
Title
Butterfly Skin
Aesthetics
Enthralling, arresting, eerie, brutal, dark, high-pitch, sensual, erotically charged
References
Mindhunter, Joe Penhall, David Fincher, 2017-2019
Seven, David Fincher, 1995
The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme, 1991
Sales points
“A love story from hell” - The New York Times
“Arresting…The fainthearted had best stay away.” - Publishers Weekly
“If Stieg Larsson and Thomas Harris met each other on ICQ, courted each other, then met in person and had a lovechild and posted its picture on a creepy subreddit, it’d look something like this book”. - Litreactor
“This book is much, much deeper than just a story about a serial killer and a masochist who follows him.” – Popcults
“Superb character development and a strong central plot that will keep you enthralled.” - City of Films
Pitch
When a brutal and sadistic serial killer begins stalking the streets of Moscow, Xenia, an ambitious young newspaper editor, takes it upon herself to attempt to solve the mystery of the killer's identity. As her obsession with the killer grows, Xenia devises an elaborate website with the intention of ensnaring the murderer, only to discover something disturbing about herself: her own unhealthy fascination with the sexual savagery of the murders.
Synopsis
Moscow is plagued with a series of gruesome murders: a serial killer is targeting young women in the city, inflicting grisly sexual tortures upon his victims.
Ksenia, an ambitious young editor in the news department of a small but influential online journal decides to track down the serial killer, devising an elaborate website to entrap him and thereby boost her company’s profile. She soon realises, however, that her obsession with the psychopath reflects something more deeply disturbing: her own unconscious mixture of horror and fascination with the sexual savagery of the murders.
A sexual masochist, Ksenia has her own dark side and is drawn deeply into the story. New victims emerge as Ksenia has an affair with a co-worker and tries to make sense of her desires.
Her one potential soul mate is an online chat partner identified as “alien”; their virtual affair is both psychologically and erotically charged. They fall in love and edge toward a face-to-face meeting, without Ksenia suspecting that her correspondent is the killer.
Ksenia’s best friend, Olga, tries to keep her grounded, with disastrous results.
About the author
Sergey Kuznetsov is a Paris-based writer, journalist, entrepreneur and educator. Kuznetsov took part in forming post-Soviet independent journalism in Russia, focusing mainly on movies and literature, and in 2011 became the only Russian journalist having received a Knight Fellowship in journalism from Stanford University. Sergey contributes to American periodicals, including The New York Times, The Huffington Post and others.
Kuznetsov is the author of a dozen of books of prose, including The Butterfly Skin, a thriller published in 12 languages, including English, German and French, and Round Dance of Water, published
by Dalkey Archive in the English language in the end of 2022. Kuznetsov received numerous nominations to the prestigious literary prizes and was a finalist for the Big Book Award and New Horizons Award, for the best novel in sci-fi and fantasy.