Blood to Drink: A Wesley Farrell Novel (Wesley Farrell Novels) - Hardcover

Skinner, Robert

3.78

9 ratings by Goodreads

9781890208332: Blood to Drink: A Wesley Farrell Novel (Wesley Farrell Novels)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1890208337 ISBN 13: 9781890208332

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, 2000

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During Prohibition, the Mississippi flowed with contraband. Rumrunners could make fortunes in New Orleans. Some got away with murder.

Wesley Farrell, half-caste son of an Irish policeman, is no stranger to violence and death, but he's deeply affected when a bright young Federal agent is gunned down right in front of him. A few years later, a new act opens and Farrell, conscious of his debt to the dead man who had saved his life just before he died, elects to play a role. His investigation not only opens up some well kept secrets, it carries his own role with his father in new directions....

Atmospheric, faithful to its period, Robert Skinnet's fourth Wesley Farrell novel after Skin Deep Blood Red, Cat-Eyed Trouble, and Daddy's Gone a-Hunting is not just a suspenseful whodunit, but an exploration of family and of loss.

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About the Author:

Robert Skinner has degrees in history (Old Dominion University) and library science (Indiana University) and studied creative writing at the University of New Orleans. He's widely known for his non-fiction writing on the career of African-American novelist Chester Himes and on the American hard-boiled crime story. He's the author of three previous Wesley Farrell novels, Skin Deep, Blood Red (1997), Cat-Eyed Trouble (1998), and Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1999). He makes his home in New Orleans where he's University Librarian at Xavier University of Louisiana.

From Publishers Weekly:

Bootlegger-turned-nightclub owner Wesley Farrell is back for a fourth round (after Daddy's Gone A-Hunting) in this hard-boiled tale full of 1930s New Orleans period flavor. During Prohibition, Farrell was riding in a car with George Schofield, a Treasury agent investigating local bootlegging scams, when the fed was shot to death. Five years later, Schofield's little brother, James, comes looking to avenge the slaying. James's number-one suspect is Farrell, who doesn't like being in the hot seat--besides, he wants to find the killer himself. The recent shooting of a black cop kicks off a parallel police investigation, and these two trails wind closer and closer as myriad gangsters and lawmen pass in and out of focus. Bart Mercer, a huge, violent man ironically nicknamed "Mercy," is responsible for most of the bloodshed, but there's at least one other person lurking behind him. Is it good ole boy Paul Chauchaut, who's on his way to the governor's mansion? Gangland rivalries from the past provide some clues as Farrell and others hop from nightspot to nightspot, each one garnished, to a somewhat numbing degree, with popular songs of the era. Skinner doesn't dwell on the ethnicity of either Farrell (who's of mixed race but can pass for white) or his lady-love, Savanna Beaulieu, though the issue of race relations does add some substance to an unrelentingly busy plot. (July)

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