FFB: Daddy's Gone A-Hunting -- Robert Skinner

I enjoyed Robert Skinner's series about Wesley Farrell, and when I ran across Daddy's Gone A-Hunting the other day while moving some books around, I decided I'd read it again.  I'm glad I did, as it was just as enjoyable the second time around.

Wesley Farrell is a mixed-blood creole who lives in the white world of New Orleans in the 1930s but who's equally at home in the very separate and definitely not equal black world. Farrell is a man known for being able to handle things of a criminal nature, and he's prone to violence on occasion.  He's very good at it. He's asked by Carol Donovan, a black woman who owns a nightclub, to help her with a problem.  It seems that a man named Archie Badeaux is threatening her.  Donovan is beautiful, and Farrell can't resist helping out, even though he knows something is fishy about the whole deal. 

Meanwhile, Badeaux is after the money that Ernie LeDoux hid out from a bank heist.  Just out of prison, LeDoux can't find the money because the man he trusted to hold it for him has died.

Added to the mix is the fact that three prominent black businessmen have been murdered, and somehow a wheelchair-bound black criminal named Lincoln and a black banker are involved.  The police are trying to solve the murders, and since Badeaux works for Lincoln, Farrell gets pulled into the case.

And that's not all.  There are at least two more prominent plot threads working with the others.  A lot is going on.

Skinner is great at the '30s atmosphere, and the characters, especially Farrell,  are fascinating.  I wonder if in this day when "cultural appropriation" has become a catchphrase if a book like this by a white author could find a publisher.  The Farrell series came to an end after six books, which is a shame.  I'm going to reread another one soon, just for fun.