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Excellent 3rd entry in the series
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Hoke Moseley #3
Sideswipe
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Florida homicide detective Hoke Moseley's life suddenly went to bell one morning. His ex-wife had married a big-time pro ballplayer. His two teenage daughters moved in. And his lieutenant had dumped ever? unsolved murder in Miami on him. So Hoke decided to bail out stretch out on Singer Island, give up police work, and watch the ocean roll.
But trouble wasn't going to let Hoke get away. Not a stone's throw from his laid-back new life, a slick, handsome psychopath was planning his next armed robbery. The heist would suck a curmudgeon retiree into a life of crime, blast a half-dozen people, off the planet, and leave nary a clue behind.
It was a case right up Hoke's weird enough to catch his attention, personal enough to make him mad, and twisted enough to make Hoke forget he didn't want to be a cop...a good guy in a world gone very, very bad.
But trouble wasn't going to let Hoke get away. Not a stone's throw from his laid-back new life, a slick, handsome psychopath was planning his next armed robbery. The heist would suck a curmudgeon retiree into a life of crime, blast a half-dozen people, off the planet, and leave nary a clue behind.
It was a case right up Hoke's weird enough to catch his attention, personal enough to make him mad, and twisted enough to make Hoke forget he didn't want to be a cop...a good guy in a world gone very, very bad.
279 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1,1987
This edition
- Format
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279 pages, Mass Market Paperback
- Published
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June 12, 1988 by Ballantine Books
- ISBN
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9780345349477
- ASIN
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0345349474
- Language
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English
About the author
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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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Alan Sepinwall, my favorite TV critic, has a running gag in his columns where he talks about how he’d like to see a character from whatever show he’s reviewing have a spin-off where they do banal tasks relational to the character’s motives. My personal favorite was the suggestion that goofy Justified gangster Wynn Duffy get a series called Wynnipeg in which he gets continually frustrated at teaching Canadians how to be criminals.
At any rate, three books into the Hoke Moseley series and I feel like this one, as well as its immediate prequel, are basically a Sepinwall spinoff series come to life.
Miami Blues, the first one in the series, was one of my favorite novels I read in 2018. A raucous, hilarious crime thriller, pitting cop and criminal in the worst game of cat-and-mouse ever. As I had already read, and loved other Willeford works (Cockfighter was my favorite crime read of 2017), I fast tracked the Hoke Moseley on my ever expanding TBR list.
Sadly, the second one New Hope for the Dead did not meet expectations. There were funny gags and Willeford is great at writing characters and creating a lived in Miami, even if its cynically presented. Most of the novel was about Hoke dealing with family issues and solving a rash of uninteresting crimes on the side.
When this one began with Hoke being sidelined from his family, I liked where it was going but sadly, it soon circles back into family stuff, with a parallel story of the criminals getting ready to commit The Big Crime. When the two finally intersect near the end, it’s great. The last forty pages are wonderful. But for the most part, Sideswipe is a remix of New Hope with a better ending.
Instead of getting “Hoke Moseley, curmudgeonly Miami detective”, I’m getting the spinoff series where said detective helps people do mundane stuff in their daily lives. Willeford’s such a great writer that I find myself enjoying this nonetheless. But it doesn’t make for a great story, definitely not a great crime read at least. And that’s fine. It’s just a little disappointing.
At any rate, three books into the Hoke Moseley series and I feel like this one, as well as its immediate prequel, are basically a Sepinwall spinoff series come to life.
Miami Blues, the first one in the series, was one of my favorite novels I read in 2018. A raucous, hilarious crime thriller, pitting cop and criminal in the worst game of cat-and-mouse ever. As I had already read, and loved other Willeford works (Cockfighter was my favorite crime read of 2017), I fast tracked the Hoke Moseley on my ever expanding TBR list.
Sadly, the second one New Hope for the Dead did not meet expectations. There were funny gags and Willeford is great at writing characters and creating a lived in Miami, even if its cynically presented. Most of the novel was about Hoke dealing with family issues and solving a rash of uninteresting crimes on the side.
When this one began with Hoke being sidelined from his family, I liked where it was going but sadly, it soon circles back into family stuff, with a parallel story of the criminals getting ready to commit The Big Crime. When the two finally intersect near the end, it’s great. The last forty pages are wonderful. But for the most part, Sideswipe is a remix of New Hope with a better ending.
Instead of getting “Hoke Moseley, curmudgeonly Miami detective”, I’m getting the spinoff series where said detective helps people do mundane stuff in their daily lives. Willeford’s such a great writer that I find myself enjoying this nonetheless. But it doesn’t make for a great story, definitely not a great crime read at least. And that’s fine. It’s just a little disappointing.
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♫ This Was the Dawning of the Age of Shaniquius ♫
My second time through this one and I didn't like it much this time: too much "The Human Side" and "Family Man" backgound-story of the cop. It was like some TV show, maybe that Hill Street thing every jackass was raving about in the 80s.
But it wasn't as bad as Hoke Moseley #2. And Troy is every bit as nasty as Junior from #1.
Still too much Cuban crap. I live here; whole years go by without anyone thinking about Cuban crap -- especially the lame food that only a guilty conscience would gush over. I should go into more detail about this, but it would be wasted on you Seinfeld fans. So no gazpacho for you.
This book was written at the very beginning of the Diversity Craze and Willeford probably thought he was onto something here. He was being nice about it and all Diverse and all; the old look-how-unracist-I-am we see all day long, but nowadays you'd go to jail -- in Canada, for example -- for most of the stuff he says. Here too, soon. For our own good.
He was onto something, it was the Dawning of the Age of Shaniquius.
My second time through this one and I didn't like it much this time: too much "The Human Side" and "Family Man" backgound-story of the cop. It was like some TV show, maybe that Hill Street thing every jackass was raving about in the 80s.
But it wasn't as bad as Hoke Moseley #2. And Troy is every bit as nasty as Junior from #1.
Still too much Cuban crap. I live here; whole years go by without anyone thinking about Cuban crap -- especially the lame food that only a guilty conscience would gush over. I should go into more detail about this, but it would be wasted on you Seinfeld fans. So no gazpacho for you.
This book was written at the very beginning of the Diversity Craze and Willeford probably thought he was onto something here. He was being nice about it and all Diverse and all; the old look-how-unracist-I-am we see all day long, but nowadays you'd go to jail -- in Canada, for example -- for most of the stuff he says. Here too, soon. For our own good.
He was onto something, it was the Dawning of the Age of Shaniquius.
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The best of the first three Hoke Moseley books. Great stuff.
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I read this when it first came out in my late teens, I didn't get it, but thought like the whole series it was something special. Re reading it now as an old fart I get it and its brilliantly humorous, has a lot to say about older men and life in general and how we cope with it.
That said do not bother to read this book if you are under 40, save it. 50 would be best.
Midlife issues, a really fun psycho with a great cast of supporting characters, and imo the best book in the series.
That said do not bother to read this book if you are under 40, save it. 50 would be best.
Midlife issues, a really fun psycho with a great cast of supporting characters, and imo the best book in the series.
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Rentner unter (abwägigem) Pädophilieverdacht trifft auf durchgeknallt brutalen Berufsgangster mit Umgangsformen. Töchter im Haus. Auszeit / Burnout für Hoke. Erfolgloses Bemühen um Leben-Umkrempeln (Hausverwaltung für den reichen Vater). Groß wie immer. Fünf Sterne!
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I like a story that goes 65 mph in a 55, and this one is pushing 40 in a 55. It’s the minutiae that killed me though. A lot a lot of detail, even in the dialogue, and there was a point to it and a payoff, but I wasn’t in the mood to settle in and pass that kind of time with these characters, not right now.
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Great stuff. You get the sense that Willeford almost resented the borderline commercial success of his Hoke Moseley books, and enjoyed rubbing unsuspecting readers' faces in the dirt... not to mention screwing with his publishers!
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