Bizarre, very short and kind of kinky too. Doesn't make a lot of sense either. I liked it.

This is an early 50's Detective pulp with some very morally ambiguous decisions. It's more novella length so it's a quick story around a few characters. Detective Jake Blake is anything but a hero in the story as he gets caught in a love trap that is destined for failure. I had fun reading Wild Wives, wondering how it would all turn out at the end.

Solid crime novel.

Willeford's description of characters is unique and all his own which is just one reason I like to take a break with his books.

This one is shorter than most books and I can't point to one person as the real 'bad guy' since every person has his (or her) flaws, deep flaws. One reviewer said 'deadpan' humor, and another said 'wry off-beat humor.' I agree with both. Charles Willeford gave writers who read him and who came after him, something use in their writing. I'm sure Willeford would have been flattered. Maybe.

A short but highly entertaining noir tale from Charles Willeford.
Definitely up there as one of his best.

Charles Willeford filled this 1950's novel with a fast-moving plot and some very unusual characters. His humor is interjected throughout as well. A four-star novel except for the very abrupt ending. For me, some of his other novels were more enjoyable.

I read both this and High Priest of California in the span of a few hours as my first introduction to Willeford's writings. I found out about him in the back section of the copy of "The Atrocity Exhibition" put out by REsearch publications as a throwback to times when you ordered things from the back of pulp magazines. Boy was I not disappointed. Misogyny, chauvinism, racism, greed, lust, alcoholism enough to make Bukowski blush (but I see where he must have drawn his ideas from now), Willeford really does it all.
High Priest of California, his first work, is a straightforward man meets woman, man finds out she has a senile husband, man schemes to eliminate husband ruining the husband's life, man sleeps with woman, and finally, man moves along. All throughout this short work the narrator (a used car salesman) gleefully schemes his way through a small cast of characters, drinking martinis and making cash over fist in crooked deals and eating at Antonio's. The "flourishes" of character here made me do a double take and check the author's name to make sure it wasn't Bukowski- a protagonist who drinks like a fish, listens to classical, and loves poetry. Willeford's protag however also takes great pride in how how looks and in living relatively well. I kept picturing Harry Chinaski crossed with not Don Draper but Ken Cosgrove; slightly smug and yet likeable enough. There isn't anything special in the writing here, it is funny, somewhat repetitive and very workmanlike. The plot itself is something that could be dreamed up in an afternoon but polished with enough details to really give it life. A good introduction.
The next one, Wild Wives, was the title that drew my initial attention. This one is more of a detective novel, but instead of a tight Chandler esque plot it's just a gumshoe trying to get laid and getting tangled up in a cast of batty characters. Basically a woman comes asking a detective to help her shake off two men her "father" has tailing her. He succeeds and they form a romance but there is more to it than it seems. They end up on the lamb with him regretting his decision and her showing more and more signs of why this story is called what it is called. Really funny moments here and observations, a much more polished up work than High Priests with all the anti PC elements toned down just a tad to a dull roar.
These are fun books to read and they are certainly not high literature. They are meant to be enjoyed leisurely by the sea or in the mountains or after a long day. This is like my comfort food of reading. The classics are great and all but at one can't live on caviar alone. OH and if you like Bukowski AT ALL Willeford is a must read.

Charles Willeford's early 1956 novel Wild Wives is the hard-boiled equivalent of a punk song. Fast, furious, and short. It feels a bit more of a product of his crime story detective predecessors (Raymond Chandler, Dashielle Hammett, etc.) in the characterization of the tough guy private dick, Jake Blake, who gets mixed up with the beautiful but crazy Florence Weintraub. Before you know it Blake is into it knee deep due to his lack of due diligence. While I feel the story is overall an archetype of the genre, there are little bits where Willeford infuses his own particular sensibility. As anyone who has read The Burnt Orange Hersey, that he has predilection for modern art and her ewe have a potential customer who has a room full of Paul Klee paintings. While, Hank Mosely likes his Early Times bourbon, but Jake likes gin and juice, although I am sure both have a taste for steaks. Then there's a bit where the characters rift on martinis: the desert: 9 parts gin and one part vermouth with toothpick sans garnish. Overall, it's another fun ride with Willeford.

Wild Wives begins with a beautiful, young femme fatale walking into a private detective's office. Sound familiar? Yep, it's a well-used, ordinary convention in hard-boiled detective fiction. But writer Charles Willeford is anything but ordinary. As he did in the last Willeford book I read, Pick-up, he turns the genre on it's head. In the first two pages of Wild Wives, we realize that the femme fatale is a 16-year-old girl, who shoots the detective with a water pistol, bends over his desk, and proceeds to ask him for a spanking.

Thus begins this bizarre, sleazy little hard-boiled novella that has a hefty dose of sex and violence, not to mention a fitting title!

Woo Woo, What fun. I read this this a long time ago and wasn't impredssed. I needed a quick read for the bus and tried it agian. Love it. A bit short on profund statements on the meaning of life; but maybe not. Love the tryst at the restaurant. Bad Bobby . And Bad Mrs .Weintraub. I know people who talk like Jake Blake. Gotta check out more Willeford.

Great pulp!

Willeford’s forte is not adhering to a stereotype. Sure, this is hard-boiled noir, but few things are as expected in his novels.
Here, what on the surface of it seems to be a fairly typical Private Investigator as protagonist, gradually gets turned on its head. Initially Jake Blake comes across as just another hard up and short of work detective..

The rain hit hard at my window. It slowed down to a whisper, then hit hard again. All afternoon the rain had been doing this while I sat behind my desk with my feet up, doing nothing. I looked around at the ratty little office and wondered vaguely what time it was.
It wasn’t much of an office. The four walls were painted a sickly lime-green, and the only bright spot in the room was the famous Marilyn Monroe calendar with its flame-red background. Two ladder-backed straight chairs, a two-drawer file cabinet, a cheap combination typing-and-writing desk and a swivel chair completed the furnishings. The rugless floor was laid with brown and yellow linoleum blocks.

Blake is aghast when the unexpected happens. It seems his luck is in. A beautiful, but psychotic young woman, the wife of a socially prominent San Francisco architect, calls at his office requesting his help for plenty of cash.

But as the story develops, his methods become more and more unorthodox, and his behaviour eccentric and often bizarre.
It’s evident that even early in his writing career, this was published in 1956, Willeford feels obliged to experiment with the genre. There’s an evident nod to Hammett / Goodis / Thompson / Leonard here, but always with a sense of irony. Law and order are out the window. Willeford’s plot is driven by fate. For anyone coming to Willeford for the first time, don’t expect a happy ending.

Just unfortunately, this isn’t as well developed as many of his other novels, and loses something because of it. It’s too short, and consequently some of the aspects of the plot are slight and appear hurried. The novel was apparently written in a sleazy San Francisco hotel room in a few hours when Willeford was at home on leave from the Army.
Nonetheless, it’s very different to your usual US noir writing, and easily read inside a couple of hours.