Miami Blues

Miami Blues, the first of four novels featuring Miami police sergeant Hoke Moseley, starts with one of the best opening lines in fiction, especially for crime fiction, Willeford’s preferred medium: “Frederick J. Frenger, Jr., a blithe psychopath from California, asked the flight attendant in first class for another glass of champagne and some writing materials.” He’s flying first class on a dead man’s credit card, one of several muggings he did to gain cash immediately after his release from prison (still another time) and he needs the writing materials so he can practice forging signatures. Thus starts a manic comedy of errors and mayhem that ends with several people dead, a crook with three fingers chopped off by machete and left behind on the floor of his victim’s shop, and Hoke, as close as you get to straight out hero in this chaotic mess, answering the door of his Miami Beach apartment and next thing he knows, recovering in a hospital bed with a terrible beating, a broken jaw (wired, he can only drink liquids for the nonce), missing his detective’s badge, gun and handcuffs, not to mention his expensive and irreplaceable false teeth and has no idea who attacked him or why.Hoke, who’s a good detective but a bit of a nebbish in the running your own life category, eventually wins through. The bad guy ‘s dead. When asked about him, his partner, a dumber than dumb part-time prostitute, part time student at Miami Dade Community College (she wants to learn enough management stuff to run a Burger King but in the meantime she’s having problems with her pimp),has this to say: ‘Well, he was a good provider and he liked everything I cooked for him.” But she’s also decided Miami’s “not a good place for a single girl to be” any more.The book is studded with virtuoso scenes of violence, most notably the scene where Junior (that’s what Freddie likes to be called though he has no idea who his daddy was) tries to rob a rare coin dealer, the coin dealer calls out his bodyguard Pedro, who’s armed with a double-barreled shotgun, Junior whips out his detective badge (stolen from Hoke), Pablo turns away and Junior shoots him in the back, then when he turns back, the coin dealer is wielding a machete, slices down on Junior’s hand and lops off three fingers at the second joint, and Junior shoots the dealer in the head. “He fell back with a gurgling sound, dead before his bald head hit the terrazzo floor.”That’s a lot of violence in a very short narrative space but it’s characteristic of Willeford: utterly uninvolved and nonjudgmental, and totally madcap.In a short appreciation at the front of this reissue, noir master Elmore Leonard writes about how much Willeford and he had discovered the same vision of the crime world they wrote about: it’s more interesting to write about bad guys than good guys and the best actor ever is Harry Dean Stanton.

The Hoke Moseley series are some of the best Detective books out there. Mind you these are a little dated, no cell phones and some terms that are not PC anymore, if you don't care about that and just enjoy a good story that keeps your interest till the end and leaves you wanting more then you'll enjoy this book. Sadly the author Charles Williford is no longer with us...

What do broken fingers, Miami, an airhead, a haiku, missing dentures, stolen credit cards, a pawn shop, a Ritz cracker box and a guy nicknamed Junior all have in common? They are all part of Miami Blues, Charles Willeford's first in the series of Hoke Moseley crime novels.When thug Junior (aka Freddy Frenger) accidentally kills a man an airport by breaking his finger, the mystery of who did this is afoot, and the authorities are on it. Junior meets up with an airhead prostitute named Susan, and the two soon develop a "platonic" marriage. Susan is unaware of most of Junior's past crimes. Junior soon devises his street smarts in hopes of staying ahead of authorities and possibly making a big score. Detective Hoke Moseley gets wind of this "airport incident", an investigation ensues, and soon Moseley realizes that Junior has a lot more on his plate than this one incident. Things really get rolling once Detective Moseley gets attacked and winds up in the hospital with his mouth wired shut, his gun, badge and dentures all stolen. Moseley knows he has made plenty of enemies over the years, but what kind of psycho steals a man's dentures?Miami Blues was a mixed bag for me. I was wavering between 2 or 3 stars but ultimately gave it 3 stars because, by novel's end, I could appreciate Moseley as a very flawed, but definitely gritty kind of detective. The cat and mouse game between Junior and Moseley in the second half was also engaging, especially as we head towards the conclusion through the seedy parts of Miami. Still, there were some aspects I didn't really care for. Some of the details and dialogue were a bit mundane and didn't give much in the way of building or moving the plot forward. Also, I thought the brand of odd humor and gritty viciousness was a strange mix and sort of distracting. Two of the lead characters, Susan and Junior (Freddy), were a bit underwhelming, and the novel focuses mainly on them, as they are on the run. Susan is sort of an airhead who latches onto Freddy even though it is clear he is one bad dude. Freddy was an underwhelming villain. The plot wavers between action-packed, bumbling and ridiculous, and the story is a bit dated, sometimes not in a necessarily good way.Still, I can see how others liked this, and maybe it gets better in the next installment of the series, but I don't think I'll be moving on to see what is in store for old Hoke. Maybe someone can recommend something outside this series.In ending, I liked to offer a little haiku especially inspired by this novel:Beware false badgesJunior causing havoc nowMoseley: game is on!There is also a 1990 film with Alec Baldwin. I haven't check it out yet, but it seems to have been given some favorable reviews from those who read this novel.

Note sure I appreciate a vicious psychopath carrying the name Freddy, but he does and, as the girl he never got around to killing notes "He does have his good points." Book is an interesting time warp, seeing Miami in the 80s with reference on one page to Woolworths, Burdines, and Eckerd Drugs which no longer grace the Florida retail scene, constant smoking anywhere and everywhere by most of the characters, police officers needing to borrow a phone on scene to report in, etc. The story is interesting, if unusual. Short and not so sweet with a most unusual "hero", a cop living in a broken down flophouse style hotel, deeply in debt due to a divorce and unable to make much headway as the daughters need braces, and he needing to get his dentures replaced,etc. (Note those dentures play an interesting role in the narrative.) Not sure why the author needed to keep mentioning prices unless it was to tie it to the time period. Still, one of my more interesting reads lately.

Mr Willeford made his mainstream breakthrough with the mini-series of Hoke Moseley novels written towards the end of his life. Miami Blues is the debut where we meet Hoke a man with an uncanny resemblance to Leisure Suit Larry.Yet much of this novel features Junior, the psychopath who 'looks like an Afrika Korps Nazi' and Susan his 'platonic marriage' partner. There is plenty of violence and some jet-black humour. Unfortunately, there is also a preposterous 'coincidence' which undermines the plot structure early in the book and an out-of-character contribution to the denouement.The best classification is that of a police procedural. Despite its shortcomings one can race through this book and move straight to the One-Click button for the next in the series.

Charles Willeford was a `late developer' as a novelist. He was a decorated tank commander in World War 2, afterwards joining the Air Force, where he served until he was 37. Following this, he had a variety of jobs, including horse trainer, boxer and radio announcer. But it was not until the last four years of his life that he achieved success, with a series of thrillers based on the exploits of the Miami Detective `Hoke' Moseley. The first of these is `Miami Blues', and is set in Miami in the 1970s.The plot is straightforward. `Junior' Frenger, a psychopath and career criminal arrives in Florida fresh out of jail in California. He exists by robbery, often with extreme violence, and within a short time of arriving brutally robs a pickpocket for money and credit cards, and injures a young member of Hare Krishna called Martin, who is begging at the airport. Unfortunately, the latter dies of shock, a fact that rebounds on Junior's life later. He meets with a naïve young part-time hooker called Susan, who is Martin's brother, and his path crosses that of Hoke because the detective is investigating the latter's death. The rest of the book is about the three-way interaction between Junior, Hoke and Susan: Junior wants to scare Hoke off the investigation; Susan wants revenge for her brother's death; and Hoke wants to bring Junior to justice.I enjoyed the book. It is a classic cop thriller; violent uncomplicated action written in a fast-moving, fairly sparse style, but not without humour. The lead cops are no-nonsense types who have seen pretty much everything there is to see and are shocked by nothing. But Hoke is more than a one-dimensional character and still keeps his basic humanity throughout.

i picked up reference to this author in another novel. the character said that Willeford was as good as Chandler. this is not so but nevertheless he produces thoroughly human character drivenplots where the mundane suddenly escalates into the violent. no shocking denouements, no rogue cops, no serial killers, no almost supernaturally insightful psychologists, no coincidence. in fact- literature!also it must be noted that No Exit Press is an excellent publisher of reliable hard boiled fiction.

Charles Willeford? Who he?The revelation that he is a hidden gem in the genre of crime novels is that Penguin are printing him.Where has he been hiding himself, for goodness sake?Pacy novel, a great eye for detail and the writer makes all the characters - with their particular hang-ups - seem so very real.Apart from the setting (it helps if you are a fan of the USA), what's not to like?A great pity his output was not greater.

J'ai acheté ce livre il y a plus de 10 ans : je n'ai d'ailleurs pas réussi à retrouver ma version, c'est pourquoi je commente la version kindle.A l'époque je ne l'avais pas lu, car j'avais par erreur acheté une version originale. C'était déjà la mode des titres anglophones pour des versions Françaises, et déçu après avoir tenté de déchiffrer péniblement quelques pages, j'avais abandonné le livre dans un fond de tiroir, "pour plus tard".Plus tard étant passé, mon niveau de lecture en anglais s'étant amélioré, j'ai retrouvé ce livre en poursuivant une boite de cachous qui tentait malicieusement de m'échapper en roulant dans le fond d'un tiroir. Il était un peu poussiéreux, à côté de 2 mouches mortes de soif et d'une boite d'aspirine périmée depuis Octobre 2003.Tout cela pour dire que j'ai trouvé un véritable trésor au fond de mon tiroir !Ce roman policier est digne des plus grands : des personnages dingues mais crédibles, un humour noir bidonnant, une intrigue et une construction parfois surprenantes, le tout condensé en 200 pages pleines d'énergie. Un livre caustique sans être glauque, humain sans être larmoyant, intelligent et fataliste mais jamais déprimant.Du pur roman noir donc, de ceux qui louchent vers le stoïcisme de Zénon sans oublier de rigoler de temps en temps.Le roman a été écrit en 1984 : il est pourtant très moderne à beaucoup de points de vues.Je me souviendrai longtemps du personnage de Junior, et je me réjouis de bientôt retrouver le sergent Hoke dans de nouvelles aventures, puisque ce roman est le premier d'une série de quatre.Une fois éclusé ce filon, je m'achète un casque de mineur, une pioche, et je m'attaque à mes placards !