Cat-Eyed Trouble [Paperback]

Robert Skinner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1999

Miles from Angola State Pen, the body of a New Orleans social worker has washed up on the riverbank behind Audubon Park. Lottie Sonnier would have been just another homicide victim if she hadn't been a long-ago lover of nightclub owner Wesley Farrell. With a personal stake in the case, Farrell is sent on a violent tour through the New Orleans underworld, sweating bullets as he follows the smoke and blood trail of two killers--and a maze of suspects with twice as many motives.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com 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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Israel Daggett's release from prison and possible desire for revenge worry several people in 1938 New Orleans. The ambitious woman who framed the now ex-cop for murder plots his death, the crucial eyewitness to his purported crime hides, someone murders Daggett's "woman," and Wesley Farrell, determined sleuth and reluctant police ally, wants answers. Skinner, a skillful storyteller (Skin Deep, Blood Red, LJ 1/97), works each character's unique background into the dusky atmosphere of Depression-era New Orleans as he stirs up a vibrant underworld of jazz clubs, drugs, and crime. A superb and captivating historical mystery. [Skinner is University Librarian at Xavier University of Louisiana.?Ed.]
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Kensington (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1575663813
• ISBN-13: 978-1575663814
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,864,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Skinner has a B A in American History from Old Dominion University and a Master of Library Science Degree from Indiana University. He also studied creative writing at University of New Orleans. He has authored or co-authored four different books dealing with the career of African-American novelist Chester Himes and six novels set in Depression-era New Orleans. His stories have appeared in Xavier Review, War, Literature & the Arts, Louisiana Literature, STORYGLOSSIA, and PlotsWithGuns.com. He is a regular contributor to FIRSTS: The Book Collector's Magazine, for which he has written essays on Elmore Leonard, A. B. Guthrie, Jr., Benjamin Capps, Bernard Cornwell, and Robert Morgan, but to name a few.

For the past 23 years he has served as University Librarian at Xavier University of Louisiana, located in New Orleans.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars "Cat-Eyed" has Hairballs, March 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Cat-Eyed Trouble (Hardcover)

Whenever I read book reviews, I am struck by the differences in my tastes and those of others. To be honest, I don't like very many books I read But I read almost constantly - perhaps 3 or 4 books every week. There are a lot of mediocre books out there - books that tell a good story, but do so flatly, without any passion, books with greatly realized characters doing boring things, or books that are written competently, but without any pace or plotting. As much as I would like all the authors I read to write with the poetry of James Lee Burke, or the electricity of Dashiell Hammett, or the imagination of Tim Powers, I know this can never happen.

So it always surprises me when I have finished a mediocre book that I read based on someone else's glowing review. One such book is "Cat-Eyed Trouble" by Robert E. Skinner. In the past three months, I have read no fewer than 7 raves about this book (although I tend to discount Harriet Klausner's reviews, as she does not review a book as much as summarize it, then tell you whether she liked it or not), but my experience was less than glowing.

This book represented the worst of what I call "Dungeons and Dragons" mystery writing. IN D&D, characters explore a room and may find clues that point them off to a different room. In "Cat-Eyed Trouble", Wesley Farrell, the quasi-criminal, half-white, half-black proprietor of Le Tristesse spends the entire novel knocking informants around. None of them knows anything at first, but after a few pokes in the snoot, each one has a single piece of information that adds to the whole story. That single lead is always a good one and Wesley is off to the next "room". It seems odd to me that no one lies, no one knows more than one piece of the puzzle and no one bests the hero.

Iz Daggett is a black cop who is just returning from a stint in Angola prison after having been framed for the murder of Junior Obregon. The entire cast of baddies is thrown into an uproar because they think that Iz will somehow figure out who actually committed the murder. All of the book's action hinges on this fear, yet it leads me to one question: why didn't one of these turkeys pay to have Daggett hit while he was still in prison rather than wait until he was out wandering the streets?

Another source of irritation is the solution to Obregon's murder. I won't reveal the name here, but the one person in the entire book who acts contrarily to expectation is the murderer. Skinner telegraphs the answer so loudly the book becomes less of a "Whodunnit?" than a "Whyamistillreadingthis?"

Finally, and this is a minor one, Skinner seems obsessed with the kinds of alcohol each character drinks. The book is so filled with lists of name-brand liquors that the action is broken because you find yourself asking "Did they really have Peter Dawson scotch in the thirties?

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Weak follow up to Skin Deep, Blood Red, January 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Cat-Eyed Trouble (Hardcover)

I truly liked Mr. Skinner's first fictional novel - Skin Deep, Blood Red - and was so disappointed by his second entry into the mystery field. The premise of the book is good but it just never gets to any real intrigue or edge of the seat suspense. Mr. Skinner has great characters -they just don't seem to mesh together. And some of the scenes have no relationship to believability. Perhaps, this one was just too much an attempt to produce book #2 too soon. Wesley Farrell was a great character developed in book #1 and I was truly disappointed by his character in book #2. And if I knew a woman's liber, I would not recommend this book to her because the role of women was insulting and demeaning. Better luck next time - bring back Mr. Farrell with all his charm and mystic of book #1.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rip-roaring 'noir' story, & a feast for the mind's eye, August 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Cat-Eyed Trouble (Hardcover)

This was a fun book! An exciting, intriguing story, great characters, and - all-important for nit-pickers like myself, all the little background details rang true. He got the clothes, the cars, the music, the streets, the guns, the talk, the atmosphere.... right. Excellent. After wading through so many dreadful 'period' novels where the hero 'clicks off the safety catch on his revolver', talks in 1990s jive, and stumbles through the book doing stupid things and surviving on dumb luck and the benevelence of the author (for this latter, that Robichaux buffoon of James Lee Burke's novels comes to mind - what a pathetic doofus!) - here I find a gem. Set in 1938 New Orleans, it brings that time and place to life as it unfolds the twisty-turny storyline, throws the various characters into (often-violent) conflict, and rips and roars along in juggernaut fashion. As usual for me, I found this book at our local library - where, almost invariably they will stock one book from a series but never the first one, so now I'll have to track down SKIN DEEP, BLOOD RED. And anything else (fiction or non-fiction) that Robert Skinner has written. One review said he was a librarian at Xavier University in New Orleans. Hmmm.... well, his painstaking research, delight in detail, and above all - love of the 'noir' genre - shines through in this terrific book. I read a lot of books - I devoured CAT-EYED TROUBLE in less than a day (greedy!) - and confess also to being a student of history (with degrees in it - gasp!) and a technical nit-picker. I *love* to pounce on author's technical errors (if they are egregious!) as well as lame plots, inconsistent characterization or - most of all - incompetent protagonists (like Robichaux) muddling through yet another bad book. But, when I find one of the rare good ones, I am enthused. And CAT-EYED TROUBLE is one of the very very best. I loved it. You probably will, too. Three thumbs up! :-)