n  The more he thought about Mendez, the more afraid he was. This was not paranoia. When a man has beaten you badly, and you know that he can do it again, a wholesome fear is a sign of intelligence.n

Note sure I appreciate a vicious psychopath carrying the name Freddy, but he does and, as the girl he never got around to killing notes "He does have his good points." Book is an interesting time warp, seeing Miami in the 80s with reference on one page to Woolworths, Burdines, and Eckerd Drugs which no longer grace the Florida retail scene, constant smoking anywhere and everywhere by most of the characters, police officers needing to borrow a phone on scene to report in, etc. The story is interesting, if unusual. Short and not so sweet with a most unusual "hero", a cop living in a broken down flophouse style hotel, deeply in debt due to a divorce and unable to make much headway as the daughters need braces, and he needing to get his dentures replaced,etc. (Note those dentures play an interesting role in the narrative.) Not sure why the author needed to keep mentioning prices unless it was to tie it to the time period. Still, one of my more interesting reads lately.

I don't why it took me so long to get to the Hoke Moseley books. I've read and enjoyed a lot of Willeford, but somehow these books just remained on my ever-growing stack.

A spare, quick read. There is no fat on this one. Great characters and an original approach. I highly recommend this one (Made into a good, underrated movie, too).

If I had any gripe, it is that some of the story hinges on a pretty big coincidence. But if you're willing to suspend a tad of disbelief, then you're in for a great ride.

I don't think 64-year-old Willeford liked the 1980s:

Richard Simmons, Magnum P.I., grape slurpees, Ms. magazine, 1-Potato-2 at the mall food court, Archie Bunker's Place, NOW accounts, Donahue, Hare Krishnas

It was a shitty decade and Freddy Frenger was a hero of his time. Willeford was an accomplished psychopathologist and Freddy is his nastiest psychopath.

Book Reaction (not a full review)

I picked up Miami Blues because the author is supposedly one of the core members of the hardboiled/noir canon. I'm not sure what I was expecting; Philip Marlowe in Miami, perhaps.

In actuality, Miami Blues focuses mostly on the perspective of the antagonist, a two-bit sociopath, during his post-prison spree in Miami. While his rampage starts with an accidental (and ridiculously improbable) death, the killer immediately settles down to make some money and find a Bonnie to his Clyde. The detective, Hoke Mosely, is a colourful character, but doesn't get much pagetime. Willeford seems far too fascinated by the brutal violence of his villain.

There's nothing wrong with Miami Blues, but it wasn't a good fit for me. I don't enjoy books that are told from the serial killer's perspective. My type of noir always has a "tarnished knight," and Hoke doesn't quite fit the mold for me. A lot of the book focused on the villain's attempt to abuse and shape a young woman into his helpmate, and no matter how questionable her own motives, I didn't enjoy reading about the violence against her.

I also was simply unable to get past the first death in the story: a young man who dies of shock after his finger is broken. Sure, maybe it's possible, but it's just so darned improbable, not to mention ridiculous.

Very disappointed, I read this because I recently heard someone on NPR highly praise the author.
Very mediocre storyline certainly would not recommend this to anyone. More like one and a half than two stars.

fun!

Don't Watch the movie, read the book, in fact read all the books by Mr. Willeford. Sadly he is not creating any new books. Published in 1984 and this is the second time I have read this book.

High rating for enjoy-ability if you like a bit of a hard boiled edge, and a great place to be introduced to this author.

In “Miami blues” by Charles Willeford, the first of his Hoke Mosely series, we find Freddy Frenger,28, a body builder, fresh out of San Quentin. Freddy arrives in Miami with some stolen credit cards, he immediately breaks the finger of an annoying Hare Krishna beggar at the airport. He gets a posh hotel, he promptly teams up with air-headed amateur hooker Susan Waggoner, even though she's slow to oblige Freddy's taste for anal sex.
Meanwhile, After a brutal day investigating a quadruple homicide, Hoke Mosely our homicide detective, a 42 divorced cop, living in the El Dorado Hotel, is investigating the death of that Hare Krishna beggar, who died of shock. and who just happened to have been Susan Waggoner's incestuous brother Marty. So the curious cop and the paranoid psycho soon cross paths. It seems Hoke gets too curious and Freddy beats him up, destroys his false teeth, steals his badge, which comes in handy for assorted robberies, frames Hoke as a bribe-taker.

Eventually, if only to protect himself, the much battered Hoke must track this cheerful monster down, but not before Freddy has bought a house in the suburbs, been run over by a car, and killed a bunch of innocent bystanders.

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.

Charles Willeford has been, an orphan, hobo, painter, poet, boxer, book critic, decorated tank commander, actor, truck driver, teacher, author and inveterate prankster.

A funny story: One of the Hoke Moseley sequels is called “Sideswipe”. Willeford’s widow Betsy, says that not long after that book came out, Willeford got a package in the mail. When he opened it, he found a hardbound copy of Sideswipe that someone had shot. Accompanying the book was a note, written in all-caps, saying “It’s a crime to charge $15.95 for shit like this.” It was signed, “A Dissatisfied Customer.”

Una Miami cruda e spietata. Che non fa sconti a nessuno. La Miami che non è quella che vedono i turisti e che, nel girarla due volte in due differenti viaggi, ho potuto notare anche io in piccoli angoli e strade. E ne sono passati di anni da quelli della scrittura di «Miami Blues».
Una Miami che, nelle parole di Charles Willeford, racconta la vita, spesso dura, di chi la vive come abitante, giorno per giorno...compresi crimini, truffe e omicidi.

«Non poteva lasciarla viva, non adesso, non dopo aver avuto conferma di quello che sapeva fin dall’inizio- che non poteva fidarsi di [..]; che, in ultima analisi, non ci si poteva fidare di nessuno. E a maggior ragione di una puttana.»

I lived in Miami at the time that Miami Blues was first published, and I love the references to the Miami of the 1980s: the beloved late columnist John Keasler; South Beach before it became an exorbitant destination for the pretty people and the plutocrats, when it was still a shopworn, cheap place for retired Jews from the Northeast and dubious Mariel refugees; Kendall still nestled next to tomato farms, and the Omni Mall still existed so that I could get highlights and a haircut at the salon.

The novel, the debut in a noir series that features divorced, sad-sack Detective Sergeant Hoke Moseley, does evoke a lot of nostalgia in me. It was a time when I was a girl reporter, footloose and fancy free in one of the nation’s most cosmopolitan and exciting cities. But even without that frisson, I would still have really enjoyed this novel. Author Charles Willeford, who died in 1988, knew how to plot a suspenseful page-turner. (That’s the same year I left Miami.) Willeford portrays the Magic City’s sinners (no saints here) sympathetically yet realistically; he doesn’t shy away from the cocaine cowboys, the runaways, the hookers, the soulless grifters or the racism and misogyny of the era. Still, I enjoyed the novel enough to want more.

In the interest of full disclosure, I briefly worked with Willeford’s third wife (now widow) at the late, lamented Miami News while he was writing this. It was a while before someone mentioned that her husband was a “famous mystery writer,” but I’d never heard of him and didn’t read any of his work until now, nearly 40 years later. Betsy Willeford and I weren’t really friends, and I don’t think it has affected this review, but you can be the judge.

Parecchi anni fa lessi "Il quadro eretico" di Willeford e mi piacque abbastanza, un giallo insolito. Nulla sapevo di "Miami blues" romanzo e film, con gran meraviglia degli altri lettori.
Il romanzo è un bell'esempio di hard boiled senza il romanticismo di Chandler e Hammett.
Non è il tipo di storia che si può scrivere oggi, con smartphone e internet, ma regge bene negli anni in cui è ambientata.
Belle descrizioni di Miani, anche se troppe indicazioni stradali annoiano un po'.
I personaggi sono assurdi quel tanto che basta per non renderli irrealistici.
Lo squallore di alcuni ambienti e l'aria di reganismo e i segni della crisi prossima ventura lo rendono un discreto spaccato sociologico.

Ένα αστυνομικό μυθιστόρημα διαφορετικό από τα άλλα (1984), το οποίο αποδεικνύει περίτρανα τον τίτλο που δόθηκε στον Ουίλφορντ - γιατί.... είναι ο πατριάρχης του 'Psycho-Pulp'.

Το εξώφυλλο του βιβλίου, κατευθείαν, σε ταξιδεύει στο λαμπερό Μαϊάμι, το οποίο κρύβει περίτεχνα το αληθινό 'θανατηφόρο' πρόσωπο του μέσα σε χλιδάτα ξενοδοχεία, μοντέρνα εμπορικά κέντρα, αχανείς δρόμους και παραλίες. Ένα μεγάλο μέρος της αμερικάνικης κουλτούρας του πρώτου μισού της δεκαετίας του '80 αντικατοπτρίζεται μέσα στο βιβλίο (π.χ. η θρησκευτική ινδουιστική αίρεση 'Χάρε Κρίσνα' που είχε εξαπλωθεί με μεγάλη ταχύτητα στην Αμερική, το κύμα μετανάστευσης Κουβανών και Νοτιοαμερικάνων αμφιβόλου προελεύσεως στο Μαϊάμι, όπως και οι τηλεοπτικές σειρές μυστηρίου που έκαναν θραύση, τότε).

Το μυθιστόρημα χωρίζεται σε δύο άξονες: παρουσιαζει τη ταυτόχρονη σχεδόν δράση δύο αντίπαλων ηρώων που παίζουν το παιχνίδι της γάτας (ο ντετέκτιβ Χοκ Μόσλι) με το ποντίκι (ο ψυχοπαθής κλέφτης και δολοφόνος Φρέντι Τζούνιορ Φρένγκερ). Στη μέση τοποθετείται η Σούζαν, ένα call-girl, που αποτελεί τον παράγοντα εξισορρόπησης και ανατροπής.

Το 'Miami Blues' περιέχει περισσότερο στοιχεία αστυνομικής περιπέτειας παρά αστυνομικού μυθιστορήματος μυστηρίου, αν και έχει κάποιους διαλόγους και γεγονότα που 'τσακίζουν κόκαλα'. Το πρώτο μέρος είναι αρκετά πιο αργό από το δεύτερο, αλλά η εμβάθυνση στους χαρακτήρες είναι τέτοια που δεν θέλεις να τελειώσει.

Υ.Γ. 1: Το τέλος είναι ανατρεπτικό με αρκετές δόσεις μαύρου χιούμορ.

Υ.Γ. 2: Η ταινία 'Ενας επικίνδυνος άνθρωπος' (1990) με τον Άλεκ Μπόλντουιν βασίζεται στο συγκεκριμένο μυθιστόρημα.

Συνολική βαθμολογία: 4/5 ή 8/10.

Βαθμολογία λόγω πρωτοτυπίας της υπόθεσης και συγγραφικής απόδοσης της δεκαετίας του '80: 4,6/5 ή 9,2/10.