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Hoke Moseley #1
Miami Blues
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After a brutal day investigating a quadruple homicide, Detective Hoke Moseley settles into his room at the un-illustrious El Dorado Hotel and nurses a glass of brandy. With his guard down, he doesn’t think twice when he hears a knock on the door. The next day, he finds himself in the hospital, badly bruised and with his jaw wired shut. He thinks back over ten years of cases wondering who would want to beat him into unconsciousness, steal his gun and badge, and most importantly, make off with his prized dentures. But the pieces never quite add up to revenge, and the few clues he has keep connecting to a dimwitted hooker, and her ex-con boyfriend and the bizarre murder of a Hare Krishna pimp.
Chronically depressed, constantly strapped for money, always willing to bend the rules a bit, Hoke Moseley is hardly what you think of as the perfect cop, but he is one of the the greatest detective creations of all time.
Chronically depressed, constantly strapped for money, always willing to bend the rules a bit, Hoke Moseley is hardly what you think of as the perfect cop, but he is one of the the greatest detective creations of all time.
191 pages, Paperback
First published January 1,1984
This edition
- Format
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191 pages, Paperback
- Published
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August 10, 2004 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- ISBN
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9781400032464
- ASIN
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1400032466
- Language
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English
Characters More characters
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Detective Hoke Moseley
Main Character....
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Susan Waggoner
Freddys girlfriend.more...
About the author
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Charles Willeford was a remarkably fine, talented and prolific writer who wrote everything from poetry to crime fiction to literary criticism throughout the course of his impressively long and diverse career. His crime novels are distinguished by a mean'n'lean sense of narrative economy and an admirable dearth of sentimentality. He was born as Charles Ray Willeford III on January 2, 1919 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Willeford's parents both died of tuberculosis when he was a little boy and he subsequently lived either with his grandmother or at boarding schools. Charles became a hobo in his early teens. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps at age sixteen and was stationed in the Philippines. Willeford served as a tank commander with the 10th Armored Division in Europe during World War II. He won several medals for his military service: the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts, and the Luxembourg Croix de Guerre. Charles retired from the army as a Master Sergeant. Willeford's first novel "High Priest of California" was published in 1953. This solid debut was followed by such equally excellent novels as "Pick-Up" (this book won a Beacon Fiction Award), "Wild Wives," "The Woman Chaser," "Cockfighter" (this particular book won the Mark Twain Award), and "The Burnt Orange Heresy." Charles achieved his greatest commercial and critical success with four outstanding novels about hapless Florida homicide detective Hoke Moseley: "Miami Blues," "New Hope for the Dead," "Sideswipe," and "The Way We Die Now." Outside of his novels, he also wrote the short story anthology "The Machine in Ward Eleven," the poetry collections "The Outcast Poets" and "Proletarian Laughter," and the nonfiction book "Something About A Soldier." Willeford attended both Palm Beach Junior College and the University of Miami. He taught a course in humanities at the University of Miami and was an associate professor who taught classes in both philosophy and English at Miami Dade Junior College. Charles was married three times and was an associate editor for "Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine." Three of Willeford's novels have been adapted into movies: Monte Hellman delivered a bleakly fascinating character study with "Cockfighter" (Charles wrote the script and has a sizable supporting role as the referee of a cockfighting tournament which climaxes the picture), George Armitage hit one out of the ballpark with the wonderfully quirky "Miami Blues," and Robinson Devor scored a bull's eye with the offbeat "The Woman Chaser." Charles popped up in a small part as a bartender in the fun redneck car chase romp "Thunder and Lightning." Charles Willeford died of a heart attack at age 69 on March 27, 1988.
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Community Reviews
Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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One of the real joys in reading life is finding a new author in your preferred genre that surprises you. Charles Willeford is such a guy. In this novel Charles Willeford combines the best of Jim Thompson’s psychopathic characters (Junior) against a cop so broken-down he is more like a second-rate version of Phillip Marlowe, all skill and no success.
The comparison to Thompson isn’t superficial. The third person narrative begins with our psycho getting out of jail and an explanation that he refused early release because he would rather do the time inside than report to a parole officer. We learn that his first act was mugging three men in order to get the money to leave California for Miami. When he arrives in Florida, he is accosted by a Hare Krishna in the airport and he breaks the runts finger. What’s humorous is that the act gets a round of applause rather than scrutiny. If you appreciate that tone you’ll read until the end. I read until dawn.
I often have insomnia and I get a lot of reading done in those hours. This time I was exhausted and could have fallen asleep by 10pm. Instead, I read all night until I passed out.
And it also earns a nod for the bikini clad cover girl that shows up nowhere as a character inside the book, just like the majority of the classic pulp works.
*Personal Note: I am ashamed I waited so long to read this. Don Herron mentioned Willeford on his incomparable Dashiell Hammet tour in San Francisco. Herron met Willeford one day when he signed up for the tour and he said Willeford was the best writer that had ever taken his tour. If you like Hammett and are ever in San Francisco, I implore you to take the tour. He does this around two Sundays a month.
The comparison to Thompson isn’t superficial. The third person narrative begins with our psycho getting out of jail and an explanation that he refused early release because he would rather do the time inside than report to a parole officer. We learn that his first act was mugging three men in order to get the money to leave California for Miami. When he arrives in Florida, he is accosted by a Hare Krishna in the airport and he breaks the runts finger. What’s humorous is that the act gets a round of applause rather than scrutiny. If you appreciate that tone you’ll read until the end. I read until dawn.
I often have insomnia and I get a lot of reading done in those hours. This time I was exhausted and could have fallen asleep by 10pm. Instead, I read all night until I passed out.
And it also earns a nod for the bikini clad cover girl that shows up nowhere as a character inside the book, just like the majority of the classic pulp works.
*Personal Note: I am ashamed I waited so long to read this. Don Herron mentioned Willeford on his incomparable Dashiell Hammet tour in San Francisco. Herron met Willeford one day when he signed up for the tour and he said Willeford was the best writer that had ever taken his tour. If you like Hammett and are ever in San Francisco, I implore you to take the tour. He does this around two Sundays a month.
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It's either my bias against Miami (and Florida as a whole) or the misogyny that runs through crime fiction, but this introduction to Willeford's work left me underwhelmed. Primarily this is because the world of vice in 1980s Miami, with its humidity drenched violence, misogyny, and nudge-nudge-wink-wink racism, while authentic and crisply written, is not a place I'd like to visit, even in fiction. That said, I'm willing to revisit more of Willeford's work. I liked his writing, the way Willeford volleyed between Hoke Moseley the detective and the criminal he was pursuing, and that he seemed to lay the ground work for Moseley to transcend his characteristics (the banter, the drinking, the dentures), dragging his Philip Marlowe archetype into the future.
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what's neat & almost sui generis here is the way it glides along on dream logic (the book opens w/ a guy dying of a broken finger, then the finger-breaker requests a girl at his hotel and is sent the finger-breakee's sister... like, even dickens would be saying "isn't that a pretty big coincidence?") & yet is so un-dreamy in its particulars, e.g. the bad guy's baked potato order in the mall food court, or what happens to untreated cuts sustained busting through a glass door at 7-eleven. for a more elegant expression of what i'm talking about, look up that joanna ruocco quote about the fake thumb. this thing is full of fake thumbs, to say nothing of fake teeth
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3.5
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08/2015
I liked this enough that I might read the sequels. Though I've developed an aversion to series the longer I've lived. I thought it interesting, in the introduction, Elmore Leonard mentions how Willeford said he'd written against genre until he was old. That explains why, of the four of his I've read from the 50s and early 60s, only Wild Wives seemed like noir.
I liked this enough that I might read the sequels. Though I've developed an aversion to series the longer I've lived. I thought it interesting, in the introduction, Elmore Leonard mentions how Willeford said he'd written against genre until he was old. That explains why, of the four of his I've read from the 50s and early 60s, only Wild Wives seemed like noir.
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With Miami Blues, veteran crime fiction writer Charles Willeford introduces Miami Homicide detective Hoke Moseley who has to rank as one of the most unique and interesting fictional homicide cops ever to work a case. He's middle-aged, divorced, poverty-stricken (because of the divorce) and living in a crappy hotel room. He's not particularly attractive and has little luck with women. (Did I mention that he wears dentures which he seems to be losing all too often?) Still, for all that, he's a very sympathetic character and you can't help rooting for the guy.
As the book opens, an ex-con named Junior Frenger arrives at Miami International. Junior is a psychopath with big ambitions and as he's walking through the airport, he accidentally kills a Hare Krishna who has annoyed him. Junior steals some luggage, checks into a hotel and makes a date with a hooker. The hooker turns out to be a fairly spacey community college student named Suzie Waggoner who immediately falls for Junior's line of B.S. and moves in with him.
Hoke Moseley is assigned the murder case and manages to track down Suzie and Junior whom he suspects of the crime. Proving it will be another matter altogether, and the dynamics among the three principal characters are very interesting and entertaining.
This is an off-beat crime novel with moments both serious and hilariously funny, and fans of crime fiction who haven't yet discovered Willeford might want to search out this book. Fortunately, the entire Hoke Moseley series has recently been released in brand-new editions which are easy to find.
As a final note, an excellent movie was made from this novel, starring Alec Baldwin as Junior and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Suzie. Fred Ward plays Hoke and is perfectly cast in the role. This is one of those rare cases when the movie really does do justice to the book.
As the book opens, an ex-con named Junior Frenger arrives at Miami International. Junior is a psychopath with big ambitions and as he's walking through the airport, he accidentally kills a Hare Krishna who has annoyed him. Junior steals some luggage, checks into a hotel and makes a date with a hooker. The hooker turns out to be a fairly spacey community college student named Suzie Waggoner who immediately falls for Junior's line of B.S. and moves in with him.
Hoke Moseley is assigned the murder case and manages to track down Suzie and Junior whom he suspects of the crime. Proving it will be another matter altogether, and the dynamics among the three principal characters are very interesting and entertaining.
This is an off-beat crime novel with moments both serious and hilariously funny, and fans of crime fiction who haven't yet discovered Willeford might want to search out this book. Fortunately, the entire Hoke Moseley series has recently been released in brand-new editions which are easy to find.
As a final note, an excellent movie was made from this novel, starring Alec Baldwin as Junior and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Suzie. Fred Ward plays Hoke and is perfectly cast in the role. This is one of those rare cases when the movie really does do justice to the book.
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A really fast paced awesome murder mystery set in Miami.
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