Skin Deep, Blood Red [Paperback]

Robert Skinner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1998

Chance Tartaglia, a cop with a nasty reputation for embezzling, pimping and drug-dealing, has been found shot to death. To nightclub owner Wesley Farrell--who knows all about secrets--he was just another low-life who didn't pay his tab. Until Farrell is hired to find the killer, and forced to hitch a ride with his own private demons. Now, the lie Farrell's been living for so long is about to blow up in his face. Because there's more to Tartaglia's death than a bullet to the chest.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

There's a pleasantly old-fashioned B-movie feeling to Skinner's first novel, set in a 1936 New Orleans so obviously well-researched that when a character drives down Magazine Street and turns on to Pleasant, "a working-class neighborhood composed of shotgun singles and doubles," you believe it totally. Into this realistic setting, Skinner places a series of characters who cry out for dead actors to inflate their skins. Zachary Scott would have been perfect for Wesley Farrell, the nightclub and brothel owner who carries a knife and a razor, and who, we quickly learn, has Creole blood but has been passing for white for business reasons. Sam Jaffe was born to play the part of Emile Ganns, the dapper Jewish gangster who uses Farrell's secret to force him to help find out who knocked off a crooked cop called Chance Tartaglia. As Inspector Casey, apparently the only honest cop in town, Pat O'Brien would have been any director's first choice. There's even a fine role for Mary Astor in her Maltese Falcon mode as a devious daughter of the dead cop. Readers will enjoy joining Skinner in this homage to the genre's history, in print and on film.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Set in a New Orleans of 1936 Packards, nickel phone calls, and segregation, this mystery begins when someone rubs out a dirty cop. The big-time gangster who ran the cop blackmails a smaller-time hood, the handsome but lethal Wesley Farrell (a Creole passing for white) into finding the murderer. Farrell soon falls into an uneasy alliance with detective Francis Casey as they trade information, hide a fortune in diamonds, and sidestep Casey's crooked boss. A pretty slick presentation that, while not too deep, pushes all the right buttons. [Skinner wrote Two Guns from Harlem, Popular Pr: Bowling Green, 1989, a study of Chester Himes's detective novels.?Ed.]
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 221 pages
• Publisher: Kensington (February 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 157566254X
• ISBN-13: 978-1575662541
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,100,474 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

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars New Orleans during the Depression, March 18, 2002

By 

Pam from Texas - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Skin Deep, Blood Red (Paperback)

This book is first and foremost about color. Wesley Ferrell is a black man passing for white in New Orleans during the depression. I soon found myself wanting to protect his secret with him and getting nervous at various things that happened in the book

Wesley Ferrell is what I would term an antihero. He walks a fine line between being a criminal and a law-abiding citizen. He owns a couple of bars and a bordello, carries a gun and aswitchblade, and doesn't mind using them when the occasion calls for it. When a dirty cop is murdered, a mobster tells Ferrell he knows his secret and will reveal it to everybody if Ferrell doesn't find out who killed the cop. Of course Ferrell has no choice but to get involved.

I have a feeling we get to know Ferrell a lot better in the next book of the series.I had a tough time deciding how I felt about him in this book because there wasn't a lot of characterization except for his fear of being found out. His secret had made a loner out of him who trusted noone. It shaped his whole life and how he saw the world. One thing this book did for me was to reaffirm my belief of how stupid people have always been about color.

I had to laugh at one part where he is talking to a policeman and says, "You ain't got nothing on me, copper." I immediately pictured James Cagney playing the heavy. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.

4.0 out of 5 stars New Orleans dectective story, November 28, 2011

By 

David Brockert "constant reader" (madison, wi) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Skin Deep, Blood Red (Paperback)

This is the second New Orleans dectective story I have read this month. The first was "Righteous Road" by Jimmie Martinez. It is curious how that happens. Even more curious is that both have very similar characters and character development. This one also struck me as amateurish in it's style: trying to be a 'detective noir' and of the era. It has that feeling of trying too hard to be really of the noir type, and there are some small errors in the history.
The story is very good. Wesley Farrell has lived on the edge of the law for most of his adult life. Chance Tartaglia is a cop who has lived the high life outside the law, while being a cop. Chance gets murdered outside his home and Mr. Farrell is given little option but to find out who rubbed out Chance by Chance's underworld boss. The police do not like to have amateurs helping them, but Dect. Casey finds that Mr. Farrell does some good. They learn to trust each other, even if they do not know why each is so interested in solving the mystery.
The end is poignant because Mr. Farrell finds out he must, and can, trust others to help him and be in his life. This happens to be the ending of the other detective story I read. Curiouser and curiouser.

5.0 out of 5 stars a history of the south, January 13, 2009

By 

Jomo Zimbabwe - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Skin Deep, Blood Red (Paperback)

This fictional piece like all good literature presents not only an exciting fast paced adventure , but an insight to life in the 30s in New Orleans and the racial time bomb that was and is still ticking in that beautiful and unique American city .