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The Shark-Infested Custard

charles willeford

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From the master of Miami noir comes this tale of four regular guys living in a singles apartment building who experience firsthand that there's more than one type of heat in Miami.

Larry Dolman is a rather literal minded ex-cop who now works private security. Eddie Miller is an airline pilot who's studying to get his real estate license. Don Luchessi is a silver salesman who's separated from his wife but too Catholic to get a divorce. Hank Norton is a drug company rep who gets four times as many dames as any of the other guys. They are all regular guys who like to drink, play cards, meet broads, and shoot a little pool. But when a friendly bet goes horribly awry, they find themselves with two dead bodies on their hands and a homicidal husband in the wings—and acting more like hardened criminals than upstanding citizens.

272 pages, Paperback

First published June 1,1993
Places
miami florida, 

This edition

Format
272 pages, Paperback
Published
December 6, 2005 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
ISBN
9781400032518
ASIN
1400032512
Language
English

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About the author

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charles willeford

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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(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
33(33%)
4 stars
33(33%)
3 stars
34(34%)
2 stars
0(0%)
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100 reviews All reviews
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lariescat
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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Ostensibly a crime book, but more of a hangout novel about four shitheads who keep putting themselves in criminally-adjacent situations. Imagine Seinfeld, but they have to get rid of a dead body and then just kinda carry on with their lives and do other stuff…and you’d basically get the gist. But it’s Willeford, so it’s really good. Four interlinked novellas, each told from the POV of each of the guys. Mileage may vary if you’re not at least a 40-something year old white guy.
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Mikasa
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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It's a very well-woven story that rewards patience because it doesn't really start to come together until about 2/3 of the way through. It's also quite cutting and clever at times, which is appealing. That said, none of the four central characters is remotely appealing (by intent, one assumes), and the casual racism and rampaging misogyny are pretty hard to take, even if they are somewhat accurate representations of mid-1970s attitudes.
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The_Namer
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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This book is really offensive and disturbing on many different levels; you might feel like taking a shower after you read this one. Five stars from me and a re-read down the road.
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LadyCherise
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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We have left the world of Hoke Mosley, that brought him fame. Having discovered Willeford from Miami Blues, I hurried to the Shark-Infested Custard which is more of the same. This time four guys have adjoining apartments, share a louche social life, drift apart, come together again. Their tales are told from individual viewpoints, a tricky technique brought off with some flair.

Theres is dark humour, there are murders and beatings, the protagonists emerge as bad men with good instincts or good men with bad habits - the interpretation may vary from reader to reader. Occasionally, Willeford indulges in a showy set-piece that might have been irritating had it not been done so well: the boss trying to move on an underling who doesn't want to go is a splendid example.

Willeford is not for all tastes but will entertain those who can sublimate their scruples for a couple of hundred pages.
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sinsuki
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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4 men, friends in the same complex in Miami, go through their connected and disconnected travails involving killing, that begins with one all 4 are connected to. That's the plot, the rest is Willeford
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Torin_nho
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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Examination/indictment of nihilism and narcissism in swinging-seventies Miami. Crisp, Hemingway-esque declarative writing. As a Miamian of a certain age, I found it fascinating to be transported to this time period. Written in the mid 1970s but not published until 1990s.
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Wendigo-
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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Compelling writing, and compellingly repellent characters. I felt like the sections were disconnected and nothing was holding the book together. Until the last two pages, which raised the book to a whole new (and terrifying) level.
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AbattoirRat
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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Leisure suits and swinger life...take a trip back to the seventies with Willeford's classic. I love this one. Reminds me of a more laid back version of Ellis' American Psycho, only these guys are a little more likeable and realistic. Good ole American consumerism and fashion sense thinly veil an inner soullessness that quickly lashes out into homicide. But these guys aren't serial killers, heck no. Just regular normal guys out for a good time. Likeable creeps all too similar to real people. Yikes. That's bleak, M.G.!
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