Willeford has long been considered the master of the Miami noir tale. He has a knack for creating some rather twisted characters with human foibles. The "Shark-Infested Custard" is a dip into the swinging singles scene of Miami in the early 1970's. The scene, at least to start, is a giant singles apartment complex - no families allowed. "They won't let two men share an apartment." But, the "rules are relaxed for women, and two women are allowed to share one apartment."

It's the perfect place for men on the prowl and there are so many stewardesses and nurses bunked up there that a guy can't help but score. This story is told from various points of view among four young men who have made their home in this complex- Larry Dolman the ex- cop, Hank Norton the pharmaceutical sales rep, Eddie Miller the pilot, and Don Luchessi, who sells silverware for an old British firm. They work as little as possible, spend hours at the pool, and on martinis.

But, this is a Willeford novel, so there is a dark underside that pops up. It pops up when the men make a bet about whether Hank can pick up a "broad" (that's the lingo) at the toughest place in Miami- a drive-in theater since what woman would go there except on a date, and he comes out with a drug overdosing fourteen-year-old. Even the guys are creeped out

And there are other hints that the dating scene might not be what the television shows make it out to be: when one of them finds a woman through a dating service and another walks out of a party with her, what could possibly happen except six frustrating weeks of dating and never getting very far and all of a sudden the irate husband shows up and starts shooting. Meanwhile, Don is locked into a marriage with a woman he can't stand and eventually he tries running off with his daughter and hiding out from the wife.

This isn't anything like the noir novels that made Willeford a cult favorite or the Hoke Mosley crime stories that made him famous towards the latter part of his career. But, there is something a little bit twisted and different about life in a Willeford novel and this isn't just a story about young men on the prowl or coming of age. The writing is smooth and professional and Willeford ropes the reader in pretty deeply before letting out hints that all might not be what it seems on the surface. Being young and single and successful might be something, but you also gotta know how to dispose of bodies, how to deal with sharpshooting irate husbands, and when to leave town.

So are the young men featured in the story the "sharks" swimming around in the custard? Or is their illusion of what life is the sweet sugary custard and the reality that they experience is a pool filled with sharks at every turn? It is easy to find them amoral hedonists, but they really don't go looking for trouble. It just sort of finds them. They are not really that much more predatory or cruel than most other people or are they?

Four friends living in Miami make a stupid bet that leads to an accidental meeting which changes their lives. Many of the situations they find themselves are hilarious, while there is excellent tension in others. Certainly nothing about this book is predictable, in a good way.

One CRITICAL error by the author. A character refers to his school as Michigan. Then later, we learn he went to Michigan State. In real life, that would never happen. Shameful.

Excellent narration.

I don't know where I heard about this but I plan on devouring Willeford's entire catalog as quickly as possible. Elmore Leonard meets John D. MacDonald in this mid-1970's time capsule.

Charles Willeford kan schrijven, daar hoeft u niet aan te twijfelen en The Shark-Infested Custard was een leuk tussendoortje dat we met smaak en vlot verorberden, al blijven we op het eind van de rit toch een beetje op onze honger zitten.

Larry, een ex-agent die bij National Security werkt, piloot Eddie Miller, verkoper Don Luchessi en medisch vertegenwoordiger Hank Norton wonen in hetzelfde appartementsblok in Miami, zijn beste maatjes en delen een voorliefde voor pool spelen, drinken en vrouwen.
In vier delen, telkens vertelt uit het perspectief van één van de vrienden, neemt Willeford ons mee naar een aantal pittige sleutelmomenten in de heren hun onderlinge relatie en levens. Sleutelmomenten op leven en dood, die de vrienden merkwaardig lichtvoetig passeren.

De sfeer is broeierig en het vergt van de lezer weinig inspanning om het kleurrijke, ietwat lege bestaan aan de kusten in Florida voor de geest te halen. In die setting werkt de pen van Willeford en de opgebouwde spanningsboog net goed genoeg om je aan het lezen te houden, maar op het eind van de rit heb je 4 sympathieke kortverhalen gelezen die degelijk maar niet uitmuntend zijn.

Willeford heeft ons wel voldoende gecharmeerd om 'Miami Blues' op onze leeslijst te houden.

A one-off from the writer of the Hoke Mosely series about a group of losers that inhabit South Miami, told with spare but compelling style that makes him one of the great crime novelists of the 21st century.

Certainly a unique book in its plotting and story matter, “The Shark Infested Custard” proves a mixed bag. Though in typical Willeford fashion, the darkly strange humour and unique characters provide for an entertaining if not puzzling read.

Definitely a better sell than a book, but not without its merits.

I really liked The Shark-Infested Custard by Charles Willeford.....I've read most of Willeford's books over the years and liked them all....I recently came across Custard and I had never heard of it. It turns out he wrote it in the '70's and was told by his editors/publishers it was a bummer of a story, so he put it on the shelf. Black Lizard released Custard posthumously in the early '90's and some-how-or-another I missed it until now. Yeah, I thought it was really, really good, maybe my favorite Willeford. I've noticed Willeford has copped other author's style (The Pick-Up/David Goodis, Hoke Mosely/Elmore Leonard)...here he does John D. MacDonald (The Beach Girls, A Flash of Green, etc). Custard is a slice-of-life story about four guys, all around 30 years old and good buddies, who live in a swank, singles only condo complex near Miami. Each has his own condo and all four have decent jobs....their activities, outside of work, include hanging at the pool playing poker, shooting pool, chasing woman and of course drinking, lot's of drinking. One afternoon three of them bet the stud of the group he can't pick-up a girl at the local Drive-In in less than two hours, while the movie is playing....Well, one thing leads to another which leads to murder and the book really takes off from this point on...But, the murder doesn't necessarily lead to the next murder, remember this is a slice-of-life story...Each section of the book is told in the pov of each of the four friends, which keeps you on your toes....There are some mundane sections of the book where one talks about family, job, relationships, but, it's not boring, in-fact I found these sections very interesting...I'll admit, the ending comes a little quick and I'm not sure it's real strong, but, overall it's a really good read. It may not be for everybody but I give Custard 4.25 Stars outta 5....oh yeah, the book is a page turner, it's 268 pages and I read it in two days...

Four of the most fucked up Willeford psychos packed into one book. Grotesque and hilarious.

I couldn't get through this, although I love Williford's Hoke Mosely novels. As others have said, it's not a novel at all but a series of four stories about four guys who live in a singles complex in Florida. There's an interesting perspective on dating and sex, a little crime, and so on. The only really interesting thing about this is that there are precursors to some of the details in the Mosely novels. For instance, there's a woman with dark patches of underarm hair who excites a "detail" man (salesman) for a pharmaceutical company -- in the Mosely books, Mosely's partner Ellita has the same thick dark patches of underarm hair and she has a pivotal relationship with a detail man. Beyond that, the book lacks charm and structure. More of an exercise than a completed work.

The long second section about Hank and Jannaire was originally published by a small press as Kiss Your Ass Goodbye. Charles Willeford won't win any prizes for social-justice aware genre fiction, but this is an enjoyably crass tale of '70s swinger dude behavior that quickly crosses into criminal territory. Written in Willeford's memorable late career Florida noir style, with an ironic long-developing plot twist involving grim Northern winters. The character of Jannaire is intriguing - cool revenge and hot body odor, kind of a rarity in fiction.

If someone reads this book and doesn't think of Elmore Leonard's novels, he or she hasn't read Elmore Leonard. The setting and the substance are pure Leonard. I'll give Willeford (on my first foray into his work) credit for a great imagination and for his no bullshit realism. But Willeford seems less focused on the crime and its aftermath than Leonard always is. Willeford wrote The Shark-Infested Custard in 1993, but it feels as if it's set in the 70's, with the sexual revolution fresh in the air, and with something of a psychedelic plot line that wanders significantly. But it's always entertaining.

Four Miami bachelors live separately in a "singles" apartment building. As the story gets underway, a drugged-out teenage girl dies in their midst, and in their efforts to deal with the body quasi-responsibly, someone else gets killed. After that dramatic opening scene, I expected the rest of the story to focus on the aftermath of those tragedies. It does, but in a very roundabout and indirect way. I have to say I prefer Elmore Leonard's grittier and perhaps more cohesive and, to me, satisfying way of telling a crime story.

The subtitle "A Novel" isn't quite a goddamn lie, but it's close. It's more like a set of four semiconnected short stories / novellas centered on a group of four guys making the most of the singles lifestyle in 1970s Miami. A pharmaceutical salesman, a private security operative, an airline pilot and the henpecked middleman for a luxury silverware firm, they run the gamut from cocksure shitheels to hopelessly deluded fuck-ups.

Abandoning wives and lovers, committing grand theft, covering up the overdose death of a teenage girl picked up at a drive-in as the result of a bull-session bet... these smarmy yet oddly sympathetic jackasses keep digging their own holes deeper and deeper as they're drawn into crimes acutely satirizing the freewheeling morals of the swingin' '70s. The casual, nigh-sociopathic misogyny on display is fairly unnerving, until it slowly becomes apparent how their disregard for women is catching up to them, exiling them one by one from their Florida paradise to a purgatorial existence in a Chicago suburb.

The plotting is a little sloppy at times, but Willeford's gleefully subversive take on the crime novel is in fit form. As in his best works, it all unravels like a grotesque shaggy dog story, building up to a typically twisted punchline. Solid stuff, but definitely not for all tastes.