Pale Shadow: A Wesley Farrell Novel - Tapa dura

Autumn 1940--A black woman named Louise Blanc is found tortured to death in her Gentilly home. Sergeant Israel Daggett can't make anything of it until a Treasury agent arrives on the scene to let him know that Louise Blanc was the girlfriend of a bootlegger-turned-counterfeiter named Luis Martinez. On the other side of town, Wesley Farrell is looking for Martinez for his own reasons, but soon finds that his friend is up to his neck in hot water. He's on the run from the boss of his gang--a blonde Spaniard named Santiago Compasso--after having run off with the key to the operation--the painstakingly constructed plates that produce twenty and fifty-dollar bills that are so good they've got the boys at Engraving and Printing jealous. Compasso's worried, not just because his operation's loused up, but also because he has someone of his own to answer to. Now Farrell's in a contest with Compasso to find his friend and discover the reason for his doublecross before Compasso's killer--a mysterious unseen psycho named Dixie Ray Chavez--can get there ahead of him.

Gangsters are murdering each other throughout the town and over in the parishes in this entertaining retro hard-boiled novel set in New Orleans, September 1940, fifth in the series featuring nightclub owner Wesley Farrell. Farrell's old partner-in-crime, Luis Martinez, has stolen counterfeit plates for 20- and 50-dollar bills from 'Spanish' Compasso, and Dixie Ray Chavez ('He expected people to die when he went to see them') has been hired to torture and kill until the plates are found. The growing body count soon brings in more sleuths, including Negro Detective Squad partners Israel Daggett and Sam Andrews, the FBI and the Treasury department. Skinner (Cat-Eyed Trouble; Blood to Drink) has done scholarly writing on Chester Himes, and uses his own turf in much the same way Himes used Harlem, delving into the overlapping relationships between the races, though less ink is spilt this time about Farrell having Creole blood and passing as white. But Skinner keeps up his references that make his hero sound like the Shadow (the mysterious Sparrow thinks Farrell is 'as much a part of this strange city as the River'). The main characters, however, don't come to life as convincingly as do the casual players, such as the barkeep in the Fat Man Lounge or a woman with a voice 'like honey seasoned with pepper.