A crime novel without much crime, and in which the main protagonist, detective Hoke Moseley, only connects with the crime/criminals after the action is over.

In the meantime, Hoke had a breakdown, attempts to manage his father’s apartment complex, while juggling teenage daughters, police colleagues, his father and step-mother. It’s all very mundane and unremarkable.

The secondary (more interesting) plot line revolves around an elderly man who blindly becomes involved with a small-time criminal planning a robbery.

A pleasant, but ultimately unsatisfying read.

I really enjoy movies and lots of times tend to draw up possible movie adaptations to books I've read. This one (or a Hoke Moseley book in general) would be fantastic. Just get Woody Harrelson to be Hoke, Sam Rockwell to be the antagonist du jour and of course have Martin McDonagh write and direct. I feel Willeford's unique style of brusque dialogue, dark humor, and sporadic violence is an exact fit here.
As a standalone book this one is a page turner and I think could be read on its own without having read the previous two. This one features a side by side narrative between Hoke and the criminals. Hoke is burned out big time and sets his sights on early retirement but just can't manage to simplify his life because he can't stand idly by as things happen around him. The criminals which are made up of a disfigured prostitute, a starving artist, and a retiree, are all led by the charismatic yet vicious leader, Tony. The set up with Tony and his gang is the more interesting of the two plots because well, Hoke isn't doing much we haven't seen him do before (dealing with family issues) and Willeford really does write interesting people who have their own moral compasses. Tony lures all of his heist participants in through promises of using the proceeds to further their aspirations, or for the retiree "Pops" to give him the son he never had. This angle leads up to the heist itself which happens about 90 percent of the way into the book and is explosive and neck breaking like the title suggests.

True noir, gritty and sensational, and yet the funniest crime book I have ever read ... told in a voice so dry and dead-pan that you can miss outrageous lines. And the story is full of the best bad guys ever.

Homicide detective Hoke Moseley suffers a mid-life crisis and shuts down, literally. He won't talk and won't get out of bed, so his family and partner bundle him off to his father's house.
"Hoke Moseley spent the next three days in the back guest bedroom in his father's house. ....
"He didn't know why he couldn't bring himself to answer Ellita, his daughters, Bill Henderson, or old Doc Fairbain ... but he had known somehow, cunningly, that if he didn't say anything to anyone, eventually they would all let him alone and he would never have to go down to the Homicide Division and work on those cold fucking cases again. ....
"Hoke did not, after his first night's troubled sleep, take any more of the tiny black Equavils. They hadn't made him feel funny while he was awake (although they must have been responsible for his weird and frightening dreams), but while he WAS awake, they had robbed him of any feelings, and his mind became numb. If he took four of them a day, as the doctor ordered, he would soon become a zombie. Besides, Hoke didn't need any chemicals to maintain the wonderful peace of mind he now enjoyed. The bedroom was cool, and although he wasn't hungry, the little he did eat when Inocencia brought in his trays was delicious. He told himself that he would never have to go back to the police department. All he had to do was lie quietly on the bed, or sit by the glass doors and look out at the blue-green pool or at the occasional boats that passed on the inland waterway ignoring the NO WAKE signs, and everything would be all right. There was no need to think about anything, to worry about anything, because, as long as he kept his mouth closed and refused to react to anybody, he would be let alone. When a man didn't talk back or answer questions, people couldn't stand it for very long.
"When Hoke looked back later, those three days had been the happiest he had ever known, and he often wondered if he would ever have such peace again. But he had also known, or suspected - even at the time - that it was too wonderful to last." pp. 27-28

11/2015

The character of Stanley Sinciewicz, and what happens to him, is the best part.