The Way We Die Now

Love these meandering crime/domestic novels, very bummed that there aren't any more.

Here's my problem, unrelated to the actual book, maybe someone else can help me: I have the Vintage/Black Lizard edition. The final chapter is two pages long and the text runs all the way to the bottom of the second page, bam - end of book. The last sentence is complete, and I can see how it works fine as the end of the book, but it also feels like something's missing (I know, a fifth book). The last sentence ends "... because you can't!" Is there more to it and I'm missing some pages, or is that it? Goodreads says this edition is 256 pages, what I have is 245. I've seen incorrect page counts in Goodreads, so this may mean nothing (some Goodreads page counts seem to add the unnumbered pages at the beginning to the total count which, as someone who catalogues library books for a living, makes me insane).

Unfortunately the Hoke Moseley series went out with a whimper instead of a bang. The book felt too much like wrapping up loose ends, as if Willeford knew this would be his last.

I was hoping that Charles Willeford might be my post-Parker (I mean Richard Stark's Parker novels, not either of the two mystery authors with the past name Parker, neither of whom I've ever read) author but my first experience with the "Master of Mystery" wasn't very promising.

A lot of people seem to like Willeford an awful lot, and Donald Westlake, the name who when he's feeling dark puts on the hat of Richard Stark, praises Willeford as just about a bona fide genius in the genre. This makes me think that something is wrong with my judgment of the book. I just didn't think it was very good. Maybe it was a step ahead of the regular jaded / embittered detective out slogging through his job that appears to be a staple in the crime/mystery/hard boiled genre but it is barely a step ahead, not a leap or a bound or writing in a different ball-park altogether or whatever cliche would fit here.

Why do I dislike the book?

One, he irked me early on with gratuitous parentheses. There were only maybe three or four of them but they were totally unnecessary. This is the first one that annoyed me;

Because of affirmative action, there were three Latins and two blacks ahead of him for promotion (all with much lower scores that Hoke's), but if the department ever did get around to promoting a white American to lieutenant again, Hoke would get the promotion.

A couple of sentences above this one the reader is informed that "he had passed the exam with a higher score than any other candidate in the department". Obviously then every other candidate had a lower score and the information given in the parentheses is unnecessary and, well, sort of comes across as right wing whining. But politics aside it's unnecessary. Pointless. Cut it! (So says the person who writes whole paragraphs of unnecessary garbage into parentheses, but I like to think that when I do it I'm being annoying but also interjecting in a voice that doesn't flow right with the main rambling thread I'm on, like here where it's like I'm speaking to you as an aside, or so I think of it, but really it's more likely than not just an annoying affectation I picked up years ago when I was doing my zine and I was fascinated with the manner that Reverend Nørb wrote his columns in MRR and later added to the affectation by being less than subtle in my infatuation with the writing of DFW, and end parentheses).

I could cite a few more examples but they are all about the same, usually with no embittered middle class white malice though.

Two, the structure of the novel is awkward. Sub-plots get developed that then seem to just float away. Lead up in plots take forever and are then wrapped up with a swiftness that makes all the lead-up seem like overkill. I guess I could say that this is like real-life but as I have whined about in other reviews (like in my review for this book) but writing novels or any book or actually creating anything, is about choices. Is there a reason for a subplot to be there? Is there a reason to spend thirty or forty pages (which is roughly a seventh of the book) developing something that will just disappear with no mention at some point? I didn't get the feeling that there was a reason for the subplots disappearing, it felt lazy to me, not like it was making a statement about what life is like or pointing out the absurdity of everyday life or I don't know what. I shouldn't have to try to jerry-rig a rationalization for why more than a quarter of the book is plot that is left dangling if the author is going to point some path for me to move on. I can get behind DFW leaving major plots unresolved in a novel because it feels intentional, here it feels like the author had an idea he thought he'd run with and then forgot about it and didn't want to do a hatchet job on his novel and be left with something barely the length of a Harlequin Romance.

On a similar point, there feels like an awful lot of filer in the book. Most of the filer comes in way too much detail about food. It's not important to know every detail of a meal, is there a reason the reader should care that he took one helping of a certain food and one of his daughters also did but the other one didn't? There is way too much space in this short novel given to meals.

Three, too many plot points make no sense / the main character is an asshole. I don't need to like a main character in a book, but I don't like being presented with a total asshole but feel like I'm supposed to get behind him and think of him as one of the good guys. Hoke comes across as a close minded jerk most of the time, but then at other times lip service is paid to him as being a different type of person than the one that is presented. In the action climax to one of the main plots he kills two men who are suspected of murdering Haitian migrant workers. He has been sent undercover to see if he can find out anything about the two men but quickly they see through his thin disguise as a transient tramp and the boss tells the other guy to find out what the guys story is. The guy proceeds to punch Hoke in the ribs, throw him in some alfalfa, ask him his name and then tries to rape him (huh? really? Hey this guy might be a cop, lets not try to find out what his story is but lets rape him). Not wanting to be butt-fucked by a Mexican Hoke wraps some barbed wire around his hand and punches the guy in his one good eye, blinding him temporarily and then knocking him out with a two by four. While the guy is unconscious Hoke bashes in the guys head and kills him. We are told later he was doing the guy a favor since he only had one good eye he wouldn't be good for anything with the other one ruined by a barbed wire punch. Hoke then stalks after the other guy while not wearing any pants (what? the explanation that he is using the pants as a pad for his bruised ribs is weak, man up to the punch and put on some pants, no one fights well with their junk dangling around). He overtakes the other guy knocks him unconscious, does a piss poor job of tying him up or for checking to see if there are any guns near him and decides to find some pants, a shotgun and sit back and drink some Jack Daniels. The guy wakes up, finds a pistol at almost point blank range misses two shots at Hoke and then gets killed with a shotgun blast to the chest. Hoke, being a police officer, even if undercover, then decides to burn down the entire farm (why? No idea, but later on we find out that this is the kind of thinking the Miami Police Department is looking for in an Internal Affairs Lieutenant. This is what a 'good cop' would do? Bash in the brains of an unconscious suspect instead of, I don't know, taking him in to custody, interrogating him, not killing him in cold blood?

Similarly, there was a scene where Hoke finds out that his daughters and friend are missing and he is a little disturbed by the news and vows in the morning to do some investigating but before he goes to bed that night he leaves his scuffed up shoes in front of his his youngest daughter's room so she can shine them for him if she happens to come home during the night. Dad of the year material! As I said I don't care if the characters in a book are assholes or psychopaths or whatever they turn out to be but don't present an asshole as a good guy, a regular guy who we can all get behind, which is what Hoke is feeling that Willeford gives to the character. I felt like I was supposed to feel sympathy for the plight of this Average Joe White Middle Class guy but in most everything he said and did he was just a close minded, complacent, vaguely racist, arrogant fuck who felt the whole world was against him when in reality he has little going on in his life that makes him any kind of victim. I would have liked to seen a few Mexican's, three or four Haitians, and his Jewish neighbor take turns beating the shit out of him with some brass knuckles and telling him now you're a victim you, stupid lazy fuck.

Nothing I've mentioned above was by itself enough to sink a book for me, but it was all these little pet peeves of mine that made me feel very ehhh about the whole thing. I went in wanting to like it but instead of finding some kind of hard-boiled diamond I felt like I was reading a sloppy kind of pointless novel with some good moments of development that never paid off. Originally I rated this three stars, but I felt like there was something wrong with me for not liking the novel after some thought though I still think that I might just be missing something here but my overall enjoyment was on the negative side for this one.

05/2016

I thought this book was better than its three predecessors. It gives me a warm feeling, knowing that Willeford brought this series to a satisfying conclusion before he died. The Immokalee section was terrific, though also awfully violent.

Charles Willeford is one of the undiscovered masters of the American mystery. He wrote marvelous books that are far superior to those of much more popular authors. This is no exception and features Hoke Moseley, his Miami homicide detective sergeant. Williford’s world is darkly ironic and the humdrum, normal aspects of life, become part of the tension. Hoke is forced to make a series of accomodations and compromises, some very dark in this book.
Hoke has been working on a series of unsolved murders when his boss, Major Brownley and Mel, an immigration cop, ask him to go undercover to root out the murderer of some illegal Haitian immigrants. The woman he is living with — not really living with in the common sense, they are chastely sharing a house to save money with Hoke’s two teenage daughters -- ex-partner Ellita and her baby, has begun showing interest in a new neighbor, Donald Hutton, a man Hoke has reason to worry about because Hoke believes him to be a murderer who was released from jail too early. Hutton had sworn to get Hoke. He’s also working on a cold case, the murder of a physician, and he has just uncovered a clue that he believes will help solve the case, so he’s not enthusiastic about the new undercover work. It turns out to be a bloody assignment — there is a truly shocking scene where the foreman of the farm tries to kill and sodomize Hoke — one that we learn at the end of the novel was something of a setup to see how he would be able to react in difficult and lonely situations.
Willeford easily ranks with Hammett and McDonald.

Wow. Might become my favorite book in this series (aside from the brilliant first one), a hugely under-looked series of crime novels set in Florida. I always tell friends that reading Willeford is something like if Werner Herzog wrote noir fiction. Both amoral and almost humanistic, or at least psychologically astute. His books are also strange, surreal, often funny, always fascinating. Anyway, this is the fourth and last in his series of Hoke Moseley novels. They are all great and should be read in order. Plus, since no one knows of him, you can often find used first edition books of his for under five bucks. What are you waiting for?

Shockingly good. Excellent ending.

If true darkness of the human condition can be said to exist down there in the bright Florida sun, this is as close as one can get to capturing it on paper.

Strongly recommended. But if you are going to read a Hoke novel, read this one last.

Sergeant Hoke Moseley has some problems. Miami's Homicide Department is short handed on detectives and Hoke's partner in solving cold cases is lackluster economics graduate. Par for the course, Hoke's home life is all over the place as his daughters are living very unique lifestyles and his former partner Ellita and her son Pepe are living in his crowded household. To add to this chaos, an early released murder suspect that Hoke put away 10 years ago has moved in right across the street from his house. This ghost from the past casts a shadow over their lives and appears to have intentions on inviting himself into Hoke's life whether the family wants it or not. To top everything, Major Brownley has assigned Sergeant Moseley to an undercover job outside of Miami jurisdiction hunting down whomever is burying servile Haitian farm laborers. This funky, quirky, eccentric, violent, obscure, entertaining, and fast paced tale will take readers on a satisfying journey that operates outside of the conventional and expected detective narrative. Bravo.

Willeford's series is a lot more than crime fiction. The Hoke books (especially the three follow ups to Miami Blues) are also commentary on capitalism, immigration, affirmative action, family life, societal boners, and law and order. The Way We Die Now also has a perfect amount of humor sprinkled in the story to lighten some of the grotesque scenes. The violence is quite suspenseful and showcases Hoke acting outside of traditional police procedural practices and encountering some truly bizarre individuals. Fans of the series who have not read this entry yet are in for some legitimate surprises. With Willeford, you really must expect the unexpected and the fourth and final Hoke mystery offers an unconventional take on the detective formula.

Finishing the series is fun and a little sad because there are no more new Hoke books. These were enticing enough to inspire finishing the rest of Willeford's work. If you are new to Willeford and Hoke Moseley please start with Miami Blues! Cockfighter is also worth checking out if you are looking for something outside of the crime genre. I feel obligated to rank the Moseley books so here is my two bits:

1. Miami Blues
2. The Way We Die Now
3. Sideswipe
4. New Hope for the Dead

Enjoy these books!