"No job's any safer than Homicide, Moseley. When you report to the scene, the victim's already dead, and the killer's long gone. Or he's still there, crying and saying he didn't mean to do it."

Hoke Moseley is fed up with solving cold case crimes, raising two teenage daughters, and cohabitating with his pregnant police partner. One morning he stops talking altogether, moves back in with his father, decides to quit the force, and vows to never set foot off Singer Island again…

On the opposite end of Riviera Beach, septuagenarian Pop Sinkiewicz is having the worst day of his life. He is arrested for molesting a nine-year old, he gets assaulted by the girl's father, his wife leaves him, then the police lock him in a holding cell with a psychopath named Troy Louden. Pop is innocent of the crime, but he is soon swept up anyway in Troy's murderous schemes and get-rich plans…

The lives of these three men should have never crossed, but now they are on a collision course that can only end in violence and bloodshed…

After a disappointing sophomore outing, Hoke Moseley returns in his third novel that is just as good as--maybe even better than--Miami Blues. The story alternates between Hoke's and Pop's points of view. It is full of dark comedy, hardboiled violence, and offbeat quirky characters.

It is interesting to note the Pop Sinkiewicz sections were originally written to be a standalone novel. That novel was published as No Experience Necessary in 1962, but the author Charles Willeford was upset after the editor rewrote large sections of it without his permission. He was able to incorporate his original version into this novel twenty-five years later, with only minimal rewriting in the last act.

I alternated between the hardcover and the audiobook read by Stephen Bowlby.

4.5 stars. Highly recommended.

It isn't often that you pick up a novel because of a reference in another book. So as I read Val Macdermid's 'Fever in the bone' there is a scene in which her hero is browsing his deceased fathers book shelves and sees books by Charles willeford. Intrigued I picked this up in the library and really enjoyed the story and character of Hoke Moseley a tired Miami detective who has a mild breakdown and moves back to his fathers home on sick leave to caretake his dads condo buliding. Running parrallel to Hoke's tale is the build up to a brutal robbery involving an intiguing bunch of characters all of whom are so brilliantly drawn that it feels like you are watching a film, in fact the writer is excellent at the physical description of his players and the dialogue is cinematic moving with pace. The book mixes humour with threat and I loved this classically hard boiled read. It is book 3 in a series so I will dedfinitely look out for the rest of the series.

The words 'quirky' and 'offbeat' come to mind for this, the third Hoke Moseley novel. I've read them out of order (2, then 1, then 3) but there's a clear decline in quality I'm afraid. Or, at least, a noticeable decline in narrative tension and shape. The story takes a good couple of chapters to get going, and then it moves forward in fits and starts. The writing isn't memorable, and yet there's definitely something endearing about these characters, which I guess explains the popularity of this series. Onto the fourth and final volume, then.

What a unique work of crime fiction—well, I think it transcends the genre. Observant, witty, subtly socially conscious, filled with fascinating characters and shot through with local color, it also audaciously confines the hardcore crime action to about five pages, and the rest is absorbing character development and what would normally be backdrop! I’m reading the other three Hokes, no doubt!

Fun to read, but not a serious crime/mystery novel .....

I almost think Willeford is poking fun at the genre in his books - still, you gotta' love Hoke!

This one is more like 3.5 stars.

Offbeat Miami detective Hoke Moseley has reached the end of his rope. Suffering from a nervous breakdown he moves out to a remote Florida community in order to escape the complexities of his life. Instead of chasing down murder suspects, Hoke manages an apartment complex and attempts to keep his head buried deep in the sand. Retired auto worker Stanley Sinkiewicz is sent to jail under false pretenses and makes the acquaintance of a psychopathic criminal. His new friend leads Stanley down a dangerous path of naivety and hazard. Both of the main characters attempt to restart their lives, although it proves difficult to shake their own personal histories and tendencies.

These two narratives drive the plot of Sideswipe and encompass a substantial amount of satire, humor, and descriptions of the mundane aspects of life. Parts are often entertaining but some can be boring. Overall the dual narratives keep the reader's attention throughout the book and when they collide, a horrifying and satisfying conclusion is the result.

Willeford's Moseley series is truly unique. This entry revives some the strengths of Miami Blues while still incorporating the unconventional elements found in New Hope for the Dead. The elements of societal criticism and oddball behavior found in the Moseley books set Willeford's work apart from other crime series. At times it is difficult to recognize these books as crime or mystery works since they also appear to contain traces of contemporary literature. All in all they create wonderful scenes, moments, and characters that are a breath of fresh air for the casual mystery reader.

Not bad, but not as good as the first two in the series. Willeford tries to write a crime novel without much crime, which is fine, since Hoke is always interesting. But his counterpart in the parallel plot, Stanley, is too stupid too often.

Com’era prevedibile, non ho resistito alla “tentazione” e ho proseguito subito (altro che “intervalliamo con altre letture per evitare il rischio saturazione”) con la puntata numero tre della serie di Hoke Moseley, Sideswipe (Tiro mancino nell’edizione italiana): ora non si accettano scommesse sull’eventualità che andrò avanti con la successiva, The Way We Die Now.

Impossibile annoiarsi, perché, se pure si pensava di aver ormai capito qualcosa sul personaggio o sullo stile della serie, ecco che il romanzo parte e prende subito (tempo una manciata di pagine) una piega totalmente inaspettata. Sono passati circa otto mesi dalla conclusione di n  New Hope for the Deadn, Hoke è sempre a capo della divisione cold cases della polizia di Miami, che in pratica è dove i suoi colleghi detective scaricano casi neanche troppo arretrati ma semplicemente troppo complicati da risolvere. A casa lo aspettano le due figlie adolescenti che l’ex moglie gli ha mollato, Sue Ellen e Aileen, nonché la sua collega Ellita, in congedo maternità perché ormai sul punto di partorire. Insomma, in poche parole, lo stress accumulato è tale che, di punto in bianco, decide di mollare tutto, prendersi trenta giorni di malattia non pagati, partire con il segreto proposito di non tornare, e stabilirsi a Singer Island, un’isoletta proprio di fronte Miami dove abitano suo padre e la sua seconda moglie, con la ferma intenzione di non mettere mai più piede sulla terraferma. Frank Moseley è il proprietario di un residence, e Hoke comincia a lavorare per suo padre come custode e manager. La sua nuova parola d’ordine è “semplificarsi la vita”.

Beh, in una ventina di pagine insomma viene completamente (o quasi) azzerato lo status quo raggiunto nel libro precedente, e non ci resta che “rassegnarci” a leggere le strampalate vicende di Hoke nelle sue nuove vesti di eremita volontario, al quale comunque non riesce di sottrarsi del tutto ai suoi doveri di papà.

Nel frattempo, incontriamo il tranquillo pensionato Stanley Sinkiewicz, che, dopo una vita più che ordinaria (sintetizzata in pochi brillanti paragrafi) e l’agognato ritiro in Florida, naturalmente, stile “tutto in una notte”, in un crescendo di coincidenze e decisioni assurde, si ritrova a fare squadra col pericoloso criminale Troy Louden.

Naturalmente, queste storie parallele finiscono con lo scontrarsi nelle ultime pagine del romanzo, quando la banda capitanata da Troy assalta un supermercato, ferendo Ellita che casualmente si trovava a fare la spesa e aveva cercato di intervenire e lasciandosi dietro cinque cadaveri, costringendo così Hoke a uscire dalla sua beata solitudine per dare una mano nella caccia all’uomo. A quel punto, la conclusione arriva abbastanza in fretta, ma, come ormai sembra essere la regola, non è tanto la risoluzione del caso l’importante, quanto il build up, la lenta costruzione del contesto, la presentazione del bizzarro cast di personaggi, le numerose parentesi e digressioni. Lo ammetto però, stavolta la struttura, che prevedeva una rigida alternanza fra capitoli dedicati a Hoke e capitoli dedicati a Stanley e Troy, qua e là provocava un po’ di noia e la sensazione che si stesse girando a vuoto: inizio e fine ottimi, parte centrale più debole, per cui al momento è quello che mi è piaciuto di meno.

3,5/5

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hard to say whether these books are great because the criminals are so odd/tenderly sketched, or because hoke the nominal hero is such a dirtbag, or because you recognize yourself in both. doesn't actually matter. this particular moment in american history feels like a bad wedgie so it's been a joy to disappear into these for a few hours a day

Crazy, and fun to read!

"Life is short and deserves a better cause."
- Karl Kraus

"'By the way, Dr. Fairbairn said I was overdue for my prostate massage'. Helen signed, and then she smiled. 'I'll get the Crisco.'"
- Charles Willeford, Sideswipe



Book three in Willeford's four Hoke Moseley mystery novels. Hoke has had a breakdown and is sent to live with his father and his stepmother on Singer Island. His partner is pregnant and living with him and his daughters. His daughters have their own challenges. Meanwhile, a psychopath has met an old man in jail and is putting together a team for a perfect crime. Sometimes, not even a meltdown lets you get away from work for more than a month.

Willeford has an off-beat naturalism that might not be everyone's jam, but he's my jam and toast for sure. He has an insight into human nature and Miami that is hard to rival.

An enjoyable read. Our detective is burned out and vows never to return to Miami, but he quickly finds that life can never be simplified.