Blood to Drink: A Wesley Farrell Novel

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)