Cat-Eyed Trouble - Hardcover

Skinner, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1575662507 ISBN 13: 9781575662503

Publisher: Kensington, 1998

Synopsis

In 1938 New Orleans, nightclub owner Wesley Farrell must discover who murdered his ex-lover, the current girlfriend of a cop falsely accused of murder, and all trails lead to the devastatingly dangerous "Cat-Eyed Woman," whose deadly secrets plunge him into a world of murder and intrigue.

About this title

Review:

Robert E. Skinner's follow-up to his strong debut novel Skin Deep, Blood Red, about a 1930s New Orleans nightclub owner passing for white, is even better than its predecessor. Wesley Farrell's "pale gold skin" hides a secret that he's afraid to let out, even though most of his friends and lovers are black, because "in Jim Crow Louisiana, any Negro blood rendered you something less than human." Farrell's mother was a Creole of color; his father, as he learned at the end of the first book, is a sympathetic white policeman (now a captain) named Frank Casey. "It was a difficult relationship to explain or define, because neither of them yet knew exactly how to treat the other"--especially when Casey knows that Farrell carries an Italian spring-blade stiletto and a German Solingen steel straight razor as regular parts of his expensive wardrobe. On the same day in 1938 that Israel Daggett, a former detective with the New Orleans Police Department's Negro Squad, is released from Angola Prison after being framed for the murder of a minor drug dealer, the body of his social worker lady friend, Lottie Sonnier, is found near Audubon Park. Farrell also knew the victim: "...ten years ago a hot fire had burned the air whenever they'd been together." Equally hot is the "cat-eyed trouble" of the title, a beautiful and extremely vicious killer named Stella who proves to be a formidable opponent as Farrell, Daggett, and Casey sift through a creepy and dangerous crew of white and black villains to get to the truth. Skinner, a librarian at Xavier University, uses his talents as a writer and researcher to vividly recreate the clothes, music, and social divisions of the period.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Five years after he gets framed for killing streetcorner hustler Junior Obregon, and several hours after his waiting girlfriend Lottie Sonnier gets executed gangland style, ex-cop Israel Daggett, released from Angola, pulls back into New Orleans. Even before Iz finds out about Lottie's death, gangster Joe Dante's slant-eyed mistress Stella Bascomb is waiting at the train station to greet him with a bullet. Iz isn't the only one who wants to avenge Lottie's murder: Cafe Tristesse owner Wesley Farrell, still passing for white, and Club Moulin Rouge owner Savanna Beaulieu are out for the truth too. But Stella isn't alone in this eithershe shuttles between well-connected Dante and crooked ex-cop Walt Daggett, Iz's own cousin. When the two trinities lock hornsand that's pretty much all that happens in this violent, colorful 1938-set sequel to Skin Deep, Blood Red (1997)sparks fly. Iz gets shot at and attacked by a pair of thugs; Farrell gets shot at and dumped into the Mississippi; Savanna gets kidnapped and raped; and the body count goes through the roof. Skinner outdoes even Red Harvest and The Big Sleep in distributing corpses; it's hard enough to remember who's been killed, let alone who's still available to stand as suspects. The tensely textured hard-boiled milieu is practically the only survivor. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Kensington
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1575662507
• ISBN 13: 9781575662503
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248