If you are a fan of Willeford, one of the most underrated of crime novelists in America, despite the films ("Cockfighter," and "Miami Blues") made from his work, then this novel will appeal to you. There is irreverent humor that will make the book and its story vivid and immediate for interested readers. If you have never encountered Willeford, "Miami Blues" might be a good place to start. It's too bad there aren't more Hoke Moseley novels, for his account of life as a Miami detective is true to its era (1980s Reagan America) and to the craft of good novel-writing. The characters, one of whom is a sociopath who really knows his own psychology, are a rich array of the citizens of a city that has changed a great deal in the decades since Charles Willeford made it come alive. Quirky, with a restless intellect ever at play, Willeford is, like Jim Thompson, a writer only America and its ironies could have produced.

I know that it is time to reassess just how police/crime novels function in the second decade of the 21st century, for the policeman is, even if honest and enlightened, still a source of justifiable fear to many Americans. Hoke Moseley is no racist cop, however, just a clear-eyed (and honest) portrayal of what it means to want to enhance justice rather than dispense it as a sometimes murderous corrective. Hope that's not too vague, and I would be willing to engage in a discussion with anyone else who realizes that some police procedurals are overdue to be re-assessed in light of the events of police "overzealousness" and displaced fear leading to outright murder of ordinary citizens during a period that has gone on too long. Willeford does not glorify police excesses in any way, and I think instead offers some insight to what makes law enforcement such a chancy and disordered proposition in our society.

Absolutely excruciating read and honestly I think what's so weird about these books is how they seemingly would not work but there's just such an attention to detail and with regards to character's situations and mental states that it all weirdly works. Do not read any of the plot summaries for this book. It's so strange how literally the entire plot occurs within about the last 30 pages and the rest of it is just this slow and agonising build-up, juxtaposing Hoke Moseley's perpetual mid-life crisis and his inability to ever truly cope with the world, with a bunch of inept criminals planning to get some cash by planning a heist on a supermarket and yeah. Both stories have such little to do with each other until inevitably they wind up intersecting but it's also just so revealing in terms of their juxtaposition and just how Moseley's own life is filled with such overwhelming weight on top of him being utterly clueless with regards to his own detective work.

Also god, like the way that Willeford just seemingly manages to introduce colourful characters out of the blue and how he's able to establish people within a couple of paragraphs or say. One character is called Itai which is Japanese for 'painful' and there's bits in this that almost suffocate you with the amount of detail that it has. Like yeah, there's also Moseley suddenly developing panic attacks and also him trying to come to terms with his teenage daughter suffering from an eating disorder, very revealing in terms of how he goes on about Jane Fonda and Karen Carpenter as having suffered from them, from what he can recall. If Sherlock Holmes is the master of deductive reasoning then Hoke Mosely is the antithesis of that - someone who is very easily distracted and has very little clue of how to properly contextualise nor process the information he's given or surrounding him. There's a lot of parts in this which ride this absolutely razor thin line between being absolutely grim and horrific yet also kind of comic in terms of the absurdity of it - there's a bit in this involving the movie Ghostbusters that immensely fits this bill. You'll know what I mean when you get to that part. Really can't ruin too many of the surprises in this book.

See, these books always kind of work in some understated way and just the lack of pretence in the writing and the astonishing and often amusing juxtaposition that forms in them. There's nothing idealistic here - just cold, hard, inexplicable reality, along with people and systems that can barely function around it. Probably not the most approachable Willeford book (would recommend Miami Blues to start off with, honestly) but it's nevertheless very colourful and self-assured in its storytelling.

I libri di Charles willeford sono sempre i più adatti a rilassare la mente e a mettere di buon umore. Scrittura veloce, per niente pesante, personaggi a volte improbabili che rendono il libro divertente. Un detective che riesce a risolvere sempre i casi e a fare la cosa giusta.

Sideswipe is a darkly funny novel. Charles Willeford had a talent for taking the mundane and the inept and, with deadpan prose spinning a beautifully nasty story. Willeford develops his characters slowly and powerfully. As a middle-aged man myself, I have huge sympathy for Hoke and his midlife crisis. His mother-in-law's desire to get him out of the house so that her friends don’t see the pants he has urinated in is at best shallow and at worst deeply unfair.

Willeford’s eye for the very day humour of situations and criminal ineptness is compelling. My only regret is the speed at which the novel closed, after such a long slow buildup I was left feeling just a little cheated.

Read a little more here: https://crimebooks.uk/?books=sideswipe

Terzo capitolo della saga del detective Hoke Moseley.

Good reading and great craftsmanship!

Hoke does it again ! The not perfect detective whit a wit for irony and to much problems on his own still does well

Fun to read, but not a serious crime/mystery novel .....

I almost think Willeford is poking fun at the genre in his books - still, you gotta' love Hoke!

I feel the need to review this because a friend recommended this book to me and I feel bad for giving it only 2 stars but I have reasons. I would say it's more of a 2.5 almost 3 star than a low 2 but I can't give half stars so there you go.
First I'd like to say I read a lot of crime/mystery novels so it's not the entire genre I don't like. I've heard this classified as noir and while I have pretty much no idea what that is I can say maybe its not for me? I've also watched movies that people said were "noir" and I didn't enjoy those either.
So far this is the 3rd Hoke Moseley novel I've read and the main thing that makes it hard to get through each book is he is an a**hole. However so is every single other person in the story. I guess being surrounded by a**holes after awhile you become one. Or maybe they just act like a**holes around him. Who knows. Either way, it's hard to care about any of the characters in the story. The could all get loaded onto a bus and drove off a cliff and I wouldn't feel a thing.
This story held my attention more than the other books because of Stanley. Idk why I felt so invested in what happened with him because he was also a terrible a**hole of a person- from the introduction he was poisoning neighborhood dogs because he was attacked as a child and now has a fear. From that point on so much weird s**t happens to him I found myself speeding through the parts with Hoke to get back to what was going on with Stanley. I even eventually almost felt bad for him.
To me the thing that is lacking in this series is that it's written with little to no emotion. There is a lot of telling instead of showing. It makes it hard to get sucked into the book and not want to put it down unless you make the person feel like they are actually there in the story. Maybe it's just me, other people seem to enjoy this series a lot.

Another entertaining Moseley "thriller". I read that Willeford didn't want to write any sequels to Miami Blues but, the fact that it was a hit, put pressure on him to write more. I think Willeford got around it by subverting the genre and writing a different kind of book for each volume.

This time around, the first book is almost like a family drama until the last 1/3 which, after a particularly bloody holdup, gets to the business of detecting. This might put some people off, but Willerford's writing and characterizations always keep me reading.

Crass but perversely satisfying downward social comparison

“What's going to happen to me, Sergeant?"
"Hell, Pop," Hoke said, not unkindly, "except for the paperwork, it already has.”

This one is more like 3.5 stars.

Offbeat Miami detective Hoke Moseley has reached the end of his rope. Suffering from a nervous breakdown he moves out to a remote Florida community in order to escape the complexities of his life. Instead of chasing down murder suspects, Hoke manages an apartment complex and attempts to keep his head buried deep in the sand. Retired auto worker Stanley Sinkiewicz is sent to jail under false pretenses and makes the acquaintance of a psychopathic criminal. His new friend leads Stanley down a dangerous path of naivety and hazard. Both of the main characters attempt to restart their lives, although it proves difficult to shake their own personal histories and tendencies.

These two narratives drive the plot of Sideswipe and encompass a substantial amount of satire, humor, and descriptions of the mundane aspects of life. Parts are often entertaining but some can be boring. Overall the dual narratives keep the reader's attention throughout the book and when they collide, a horrifying and satisfying conclusion is the result.

Willeford's Moseley series is truly unique. This entry revives some the strengths of Miami Blues while still incorporating the unconventional elements found in New Hope for the Dead. The elements of societal criticism and oddball behavior found in the Moseley books set Willeford's work apart from other crime series. At times it is difficult to recognize these books as crime or mystery works since they also appear to contain traces of contemporary literature. All in all they create wonderful scenes, moments, and characters that are a breath of fresh air for the casual mystery reader.