εξαιρετικο παλπ σε στιλ Ελμορ Λεοναρντ

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.

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.

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

3.5

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.

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.

A really fast paced awesome murder mystery set in Miami.

Charles Willeford's Miami Blues is the first of a series starring Miami homicide detective Hoke Moseley. Willeford alternates chapters between psychopathic ex-con Frederick J. Fenger, Jr. and Sergeant Moseley. It seems as if the author was undecided whether Fenger (called Junior) would be the star or sad sack cop Moseley.

For the first half of the novel, the main interest is Junior, who hooks up with a young prostitute called Susan Waggoner from a rural Florida agricultural community. We see Junior land in Miami from Florida, where he spent years in reform school and prison and begin to establish himself as a local baddie. At one point, he beats up Moseley and steals his false teeth, badge, ID, and gun, using them to further his criminal career.

As in the other novels I have read by him, Willeford knows how to keep the reader turning those pages. It was a highly successful book that came out in many editions.

There's some great stuff in here. A couple main characters who are super weird and specific, a detailed drawing of Miami, a pretty wild plot. It felt so very 80s to me, right down to the tone of the storytelling. (Which, you know, makes sense, but is also a little off putting. It's as though your racist, Reagan supporting retired neighbor was telling you an incredible story.) On the other hand, the writing is full of facts and details in a way that is almost Tolstoyesque at times. Pretty fun read, even with latent 80s cultural baggage in the mix. I'll prob read another.

A thoroughly enjoyable offbeat crime novel. The dialogue and writing are sharp as the story cuts to the chase. The deadpan dark humor are appreciated as well. All these elements add up to an entertaining read.

Quote (Start of the book): "Frederick J. Frenger, Jr., a blithe psychopath from California, asked the flight attendant in first class for another glass of champagne and some writing materials."

Charles Willeford is the king of crime fiction. Or one of them, at any rate. His comeback with the Hoke Mosley novels not only reaffirms his nimble command of atmosphere, the strange niceties of human behavior, dark and quirky humor, and eye-popping story twists, but it also demonstrates his range. Yes, his range. Because he locked into the 1980s just as adeptly as he locked into the 1960s. Frederick J. Frenger is one of the greatest sociopaths that literature has ever known, prone to volatility and transgressive revelations. But Hoke Mosley, with his false teeth and his economic poverty (half of his paychecks go to his ex-wife), is every much his equal. Usually, a novel with a sociopath as the main character leans entirely on that character. But Willeford was too great a novelist to fall into that formula. That he achieves a divine character balance between Frenger and Mosley while also sustaining his trademark humor and momentum and ALSO giving us one of the oddest and most hilarious "murders" in crime fiction is a tribute to his range. It had been two decades since I last read MIAMI BLUES, but it remains a masterpiece. And what's truly criminal is how it is getting harder and harder to find Willeford's great work in bookstores.