2.5

my least fav of the bunch...

Ich sehe da negative Kritiken? My ass...
Fünf Sterne!

hoke moseley's dentures are in the top ten of "inanimate objects as characters". i felt like the half of the plot with ellita and the new neighbor got a little underplayed but i will take all the hoke extended universe i can get. the middle part where hoke goes in on the cruel watermelon farmer crosses over from offbeat genre fic to like, samuel beckett writing an action movie. looking forward to re-reading these again in a few years.

3.5 stars
This little excerpt from chapter 2, makes me laugh, recalling my days of the 20th century, when people smoked everywhere, until about 1992.
" '.. .this really is important. I attended the new Chief's weekly briefing this morning and he's come up with a terrible plan. He wants to stop all smoking inside the police station. His idea's to set up a smoking area in the parking lot, and anytime you want to smoke you have to sign out for personal time and go out to the lot. Then, when you finish your smoke, you sign back in again and return to your desk or whatever. A lot of guys have already quit smoking, you see, and they've complained to the new chief that smoke from heavy smokers is invading their space.'
'what about the men's room?'
'no smoking inside the building, period. That includes the interrogation rooms, suspect lockup, everywhere except the outside parking lot.'
'it won't work, Bill. Lieutenant Ramirez, in robbery, smokes at least three packs a day. He might as well move his f****** desk out to the parking lot.' "

Hoke Moseley, Sergeant at the Miami Police department, is a rough old fart getting near retirement. He and his assistant, a transplant from the robbery Department, are assigned, besides other things, cold cases. Hoke is working on a three-year-old case of the murder of a dr.

I learned something about when people have their houses tented for getting rid of insect pests.
"... Termite swarms have an uncanny knack for finding their way back to an edible house, and exterminators in South Florida thrive on repeat business. The house is put under canvas, and the tenants must stay away for from 36 to 72 hours while the Vikane gas kills the termites and other insects inside the house. Food and other perishables are placed in plastic bags during the tenting, and homeowners either stay with friends or put up in a motel until it's safe to return home. Burglaries of tented houses occur frequently, and three or four times a year, and sometimes more often than that, dead burglars, overcome by the Vikane gas, are discovered together with the dead insects when the owners return home. Vikane is a powerful poison, and it kills people as easily as it does termites. Burglars who specialize in tent job invasions wear gas masks and get in and out quickly with their loot. But amateurs who hold dampened handkerchiefs over their mouths and stay too long looking for valuables can be overcome by the fumes and drop dead to the floor like the roaches and termites. Usually burglars are teenagers, high school dropouts with low IQs, but occasionally they are mature man who should know better. Warning signs are posted on all four sides of the tented house, in English and Spanish, but more than 30% of the Miami burglars are illiterate in both languages and cannot read signs."

man... i am so sad that there is no more Hoke Mosely books! this is by far my favorite new literary discovery of the year. I now need to read more Charles Willeford, but i will forever miss Hoke and his merry band of misfits.

This one was pretty okay. Once again terrific characters, snappy dialogue, and flashes of gruesome violence string along a pretty ho hum plot that features Hoke going undercover as a set up, flushing out a murderer, and watching someone he put away for murder come back into his life and stir things up a bit. It was a quick read and therefore didn't take up too much time but I think I am satisfied with my dive into Willeford's body of work

The Way We Die by Charles Willeford A Hoke Moseley Novel, the last in the series. Hoke is a Miami police detective who lives with two teenage daughters. He solves a cold case murder and he goes undercover to deal with a super mean Florida farmer who mistreats his migrant workers. I liked this book. Hoke is a likable character who is a good but not a great detective who has his own internal pulls.

Miami Blues lef me to The Shark-infested Custard and now to this. Admiration for Willeford grows with each book. Superficially, The Way we Due Now is hard-boiled police procedural, but its investigation of character and motivation reveals an author with rather more to offer. The unconventional family in which Hoke, a police sergeant in deepest Miami, finds himself is portrayed with convincing insight. There is a murder to be solved and there is an assignment that deals in almost casual brutality.

The author writes with an eye for detail that is almost documentary yet somehow does nothing to mar the pace. Political correctness is precisely skewered in passing, and there is some delicious deadpan humour. Towards the end there is a marvellous riff on the theme of the new chief replacing the old new chief. R ead and enjoy.

If this is pulp fiction it is very high class pulp fiction.

You ever want to savor a book but can't put it down? This was "The Way We Die Now." I knew this was the last of the Hoke Moseley series but I couldn't stop reading, the pages flew right by. Something about the book and the last 3 previous Hoke Moseley novels just makes me laugh.

Hoke is an interesting character; he cares for his family but at the same time doesn't care enough. He puts everything into his career but the job never loves him back. Instead his superiors are always piling work on (sometimes trivial and unnecessary work) because he solves cases and is good at it. He comes across as hating everyone but works with and in one of the most diverse cities in America.

My only gripe is the antagonist didn't have much of a spotlight this time and wasn't nearly as comical as the previous 3. I think Charles Willeford tried to make up for that with the other side characters Hoke ran into during this book.

My only wish is that there was a fifth. Because 1) This is hands down one of the better South Florida book series I've read and 2) without spoiling this one Hoke was set to return for a fifth. Sadly Charles Willeford passed before writing it.

A melancholy but surprisingly great ending to one of the best series I have ever read. Hoke Moseley is a character for the ages and I'm saddened that Willeford died before he could write more. I can't recommend this series any higher- do yourself a favor and read these books!

Un onesto poliziotto buon padre di famiglia, ma quando si trova in pericolo.. mollalo! Personaggio eccezionale, vicenda interessante e sullo sfondo l'autore che sogghigna.

As good as the rest and if anything even more fucked and bitter. A truly heartbreaking half ending to Hoke's story.