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Miami Blues (Hoke Moseley #1)

by Charles Willeford, Elmore Leonard (Introduction)

4.06 of 5 stars 4.06 · rating details · 908 ratings · 76 reviews

After a brutal day investigating a quadruple homicide, Detective Hoke Moseley settles into his room at the un-illustrious El Dorado Hotel and nurses a glass of brandy. With his guard down, he doesn’t think twice when he hears a knock on the door. The next day, he finds himself in the hospital, badly bruised and with his jaw wired shut. He thinks back over ten years of case...more

Paperback, 191 pages

Published August 10th 2004 by Vintage (first published 1984)

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Aug 17, 2012 Lou rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-thriller, noir, adapted-to-screen

Check out the movie trailer and review @http://more2read.com/review/miami-blues-hoke-moseley-1-by-charles-willeford/

This story is reminiscent of the novel the killer inside me by Jim Thompson, in that it features an anti-hero Freddy Frenger jr AkA Ramon Mendez a mean psychopath who is a compulsive liar and thief similar to Thompsons creation of Sheriff Lou Ford. You'd love to have these two mean specimens on the same page. The whole story plays out into one brutal and bloody series of events tak...more Check out the movie trailer and review @http://more2read.com/review/miami-blues-hoke-moseley-1-by-charles-willeford/

This story is reminiscent of the novel the killer inside me by Jim Thompson, in that it features an anti-hero Freddy Frenger jr AkA Ramon Mendez a mean psychopath who is a compulsive liar and thief similar to Thompsons creation of Sheriff Lou Ford. You'd love to have these two mean specimens on the same page. The whole story plays out into one brutal and bloody series of events taking place in the sunshine state of Miami.
Freddy teams up with a naive young woman and makes her believe he wants to be married and have a family.
While he tries to play family man he's running around town robbing and killing and she's quite oblivious to this dark side. Time will tell though and she will soon taste the end of his whip and as some dark harrowing truths come to light she have to do some mighty quick intelligent thinking.
You are put through the eyes of Freddy more than the first appearance of homicide detective Hoke Moseley.
Hoke can be brutal when needed but looks to be an interesting detective to read more of in the other novels where Charles Willeford features him as a main protagonist.
The dialogue and writing is sharp, the story cuts to the chase there is some deadpan dark humour in the mix and all these blends of style provides entertaining reading through one dark side of Miami with ex-con Freddy 'Junior.'

"Perhaps Freddy has been too pessimistic about his life. He had figured, for as long as he could remember, that someday he would end up in prison for life, wandering around the yard as an old lag, muttering into a white beard and sniping cigarette butts.
But that didn't have to be - not if he could plan and execute one big job. Just one big haul...
But nothing came to him. He had no concrete ideas except for germ, and the germ was that he had Sergeant Hoke Moseley's badge and ID. The badge was an automatic pass to free food and public transportation; it could also be used to bluff someone out of considerable sum of cash. But who?" (less)

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Jun 16, 2008 Jordan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: crime fiction fans, Elmore Leonard fanatics

This book by Charles Willeford (along with The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins) is the basis of the great crime fiction of Elmore Leonard. He was heavily influenced by these two authors and it shows.

This is not to say that Leonard copied the style – instead he has improved upon the approach to writing that these authors have themselves mastered.

In Miami Blues, the reader spends just as much time with the bad guy as the good guy (maybe even more time..) and he seems like a real perso...more This book by Charles Willeford (along with The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins) is the basis of the great crime fiction of Elmore Leonard. He was heavily influenced by these two authors and it shows.

This is not to say that Leonard copied the style – instead he has improved upon the approach to writing that these authors have themselves mastered.

In Miami Blues, the reader spends just as much time with the bad guy as the good guy (maybe even more time..) and he seems like a real person, not just a criminal to be arrested by the police. We spend time with this antagonist, Freddy the psychopathic ex-con, and learn about his motivations, his likes, dislikes, worries, etc. You’ll see the roots of Leonard when you read this book.

The “good guy” cop Hoke a unique denture-wearing guy who is sympathetic yet slightly stand-offish. You don’t learn to love him but you like him as well as feel bad for him. He’s not overly macho and therefore he seems all the more real for that.

Some of the language and references are dated and there some racist/homophobic/sexist language that may turn off some readers. However, that language is put there to show the attitudes of people you’d meet everyday. It’s a frank and honest portrayal of real people.

The plot relies on a far-fetched coincidence but it’s not too distracting. There’s some pretty brutal scenes in here, too, so fans of violent crime fiction will love it.

Even though the roots of Elmore Leonard lie in the fiction of Willeford and Higgins, I think Leonard has improved upon that style, tightening up the writing and making it more laid-back (and more fast-paced, if that makes sense).

There is also some humor in Miami Blues, some of it quite funny (the “Crisco” part is pretty hilarious).

So, if you like good crime fiction that isn’t a “whodunit”, read this book. If you like Elmore Leonard, read this book. And for Tarantino fans, QT has also name-dropped Willeford as an influence so if that gets you excited, read this book.
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Jan 15, 2012 wally rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: willeford

an interesting idea from the elmore leonard introduction:
we had discovered that featuring bad guys as the central character was more fun than being stuck w/some good guy's p.o.v.--unless the good guy was hard to tell from the bad guy.

yes....diablo ex machinery.

onward and upward

okay so i'm 26% down...on the kindle.

willeford is a hoot...this story is a hoot. so this psycho (he acts normal, somewhat) out of prison heads to miami, ends up killing a hare krishna at the airport.

detective hoke mosely...more

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Dec 14, 2011 Patrick McCoy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime-noir

I was a fan of the George Artimage film (1990) based on Charles Willeford's Hoke Moseley novel Miami Blues (1984) before reading it. This edition has an introduction written by Elmore Leonard. And, indeed, I see similarities between the two authors-they are both masters of the literary crime novel. I really enjoyed inhabiting the seedy 80s Miami in Willeford's novel. I like how Willeford uses Junior's introduction to Miami as a way to introduce the city to those of us who are also not familiar w...more

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May 12, 2012 Rob Kitchin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Miami Blues is the first of four Hoke Moseley novels. It was made into a movie in 1990. In many ways, Willeford was the forerunner for the comic noir set of Sunshine State novels by the likes of Carl Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard, Tim Dorsey, Victor Gischler, Randy Wade White, James Hall, Laurence Shames. The novel was darkly amusing, without being laugh out loud funny and in many ways the novel kind of aimlessly unfolds, lacking in a strong narrative drive. The plot is rather straightforward, and I w...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Gerald Sinstadt rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime

Penguin can be thanked for adding Miami Blies to their Modern Classics catalogue. The late Charles Willeford had enough exprience of life to qualify him to write about its darker side: he was a US tank commander with many medals in World War II, he was a horse trainer, a boxer and a painter.

Three interesting characters interact in Miami Blues. Frederick J Frenger Jr is an amoral, violent crook. Susan Waggoner is the student/hooker whom he lures into a "platonic marriage." Hoke Moseley is the hom...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Stacy rated it 3 of 5 stars

It's either my bias against Miami (and Florida as a whole) or the misogyny that runs through crime fiction, but this introduction to Willeford's work left me underwhelmed. Primarily this is because the world of vice in 1980s Miami, with its humidity drenched violence, misogyny, and nudge-nudge-wink-wink racism, while authentic and crisply written, is not a place I'd like to visit, even in fiction. That said, I'm willing to revisit more of Willeford's work. I liked his writing, the way Willeford...more

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Mar 20, 2011 John Onoda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Charles Willeford reminds me of Elmore Leonard. Both write about criminals with as much affection and understanding as they write about cops. All characters are presented as human and flawed, often with both good and bad traits. In Miami Blues, the mains character are the sociopathic Freddy Frenger and the dysfunction Hoke Moseley, a cop who is living in a seedy Miami hotel and who really ought to retire.

The portrait of Miami in the 1980's is from the perspective of people on the fringes. It isn...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Calton Bolick added it

Hard-boiled crime novel with perhaps my favorite opening sentence of all time: "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."

Frenger hits Miami and immediately attracts the attention of the police in general (when he casually kills a Hare Krishna at the airport) and Detective Hoke Moseley in particular (when he beats him up and steals his false teeth). Now Moseley has to track...more

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Jun 04, 2010 Nate rated it 5 of 5 stars

Better than Chandler, better than MacDonald... This is probably one of the better crime novels I've read... Not that I've read a ton, but this one takes the cake. One thing that makes it unique among almost anything I've read is the author's dual psychological understanding and un-sentimentality toward his characters. What I'm trying to say is that he doesn't seem to empathize with everyone, yet he still gives us very human and accurate portraits of the characters. Its beautiful and gritty and a...more

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Dec 09, 2012 Cbj rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: americana, alienation, melancholic, tired-of-modern-life, tough-as-nails, pulp-fiction

This was great, its like a police procedural with strong existential elements. This novel gives a slight indication of what Willeford intended to do with the vastly superior sequels of MIAMI BLUES. Unlike SIDESWIPE, the barbarian in MIAMI BLUES is not described from somebody else's point of view. Here his accomplice - a seemingly stupid prostitute is described from his point of view. So we don't know how reliable his account of her is, especially when you consider the ending.

And then there is t...more

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Oct 26, 2012 Mariano Hortal rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: north-american-literature, genre-noir-hardboiled-detective

Publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/otro-moment...

Entre los aficionados al género es bien conocida la existencia de una de las mejores colecciones de novela negra que se ha publicado en este país, fue editada por Ediciones Júcar y el director era el gran Paco Ignacio Taibo II, se llamaba Etiqueta Negra y el contenido era simplemente excepcional (Westlake, Thompson, Hammett, Himes, McClure, Goodis, Ledesma, Juan Madrid, Pronzini, Manchette, Block, McBain…), así hasta conformar un largo etcéter...more Publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/otro-moment...

Entre los aficionados al género es bien conocida la existencia de una de las mejores colecciones de novela negra que se ha publicado en este país, fue editada por Ediciones Júcar y el director era el gran Paco Ignacio Taibo II, se llamaba Etiqueta Negra y el contenido era simplemente excepcional (Westlake, Thompson, Hammett, Himes, McClure, Goodis, Ledesma, Juan Madrid, Pronzini, Manchette, Block, McBain…), así hasta conformar un largo etcétera que conjugaba clásicos, autores españoles y sudamericanos y lo último de la novela policíaca. Es tan buena que, poco a poco, haciendo arqueología en las librerías de segunda mano y ocasión, voy consiguiendo esos títulos que, en la mayoría de los casos no han sido reeditados en ningún sitio.

Si tenemos que hablar de quién ha cogido el legado de esta colección, está claro que debemos referirnos a Serie Negra de RBA que ha cogido el testigo y está construyendo una colección sencillamente magnífica, sobre todo porque gracias a publicar a ciertos autores más comerciales están consiguiendo al mismo tiempo ir recuperando más y más clásicos, inencontrables hoy en día. La fórmula está siendo la misma, una sana mezcla de clásicos (Thompson, Chandler, Himes, McDonald, Millar..), junto a autores de actuales más comerciales (Nesbo, Coben, Rankin, Kerr, Lehane…), escritores de habla hispana (Zanón, Ledesma, Salem, Ibáñez…) e incluso de novela detectivesca (Christie, Conan Doyle..). Además, para reforzar el conocimiento del género, están haciendo un trabajo estupendo en su web de novela negra (www.serienegra.es) y están más que activos en sus perfiles de Facebook y Twitter (@serienegra). La sensación es que les está yendo bien, tienen ya más de ciento sesenta títulos y no parece que se vaya a terminar a corto plazo, lo cuál me llena de satisfacción. ¿Para qué engañarnos? Uno de los listados que espero con más ganas todos los meses es el de RBA.

Esta semana, por lo tanto, en el rincón de recomendaciones policíacas, una recopilación con tres de las últimas obras publicadas en esta colección, tres obras imprescindibles en un podio de muchos quilates:

Miami Blues de Charles Willeford. Uno de esos títulos inencontrables y que acaban de recuperar es precisamente esta primera novela de Charles Willeford (1919-1988) de su serie con el detective Hoke Moseley. Estamos ante una de esas novelas donde la dicotomía investigador-criminal está presente desde casi el comienzo. El autor monta la novela desde los puntos de vista de los dos alternando capítulos de esta manera; así, por un lado tenemos al sociópata Frederick J. Freyer (“Tenía veintiocho años. Parecía mayor porque su vida había sido dura; las líneas en la comisura de los labios estaban demasiado profundas para alguien que no llegaba a los treinta años”); y por el otro a nuestro Hoke Moseley. La novela tiene la particularidad de estar ambientada en Miami con todo lo que ello conlleva (“Realmente me siento indefenso conduciendo y caminando por Miami sin un arma”). La absorbente trama se va enredando, las voces se suceden hasta mezclarse en los capítulos finales según se acerca la conclusión. Cada uno de ellos luchará por su identidad, uno por conservarla, otro por adoptar un estatus “respetable”, con consecuencias funestas. Es un hardboiled en su mejor tradición, al estilo de colosos como Bunker o Crumley: cruda y dolorosa, violenta. Solo queda que haya un poco de suerte y veamos la serie de Moseley publicada al completo.

El asesinato como diversión de Fredric Brown (1906-1972). Algunas novelas simplemente necesitan una premisa potente para ser escritas, luego puedes acabarlo bien o mal pero en la mente de quien lo lea siempre se va a quedar esa idea; si a una premisa interesante le unes inteligencia, entonces tienes una novela tan sobresaliente como ésta. El punto de partida es tan innovador como divertido: una serie de crímenes empieza a producirse y el único punto en común para todos ellos está en los guiones para radionovelas escrito por el protagonista que… sorprendentemente, no se los ha enseñado a nadie. El estupendo escritor de novelas de ciencia ficción y relatos breves nos focaliza la narración en el peculiar Bill Tracy al que caracteriza maravillosamente (“Tracy os hubiera caído bien, a pesar de los extraños rumbos por los que su lógica lo conducía de vez en cuando. Pero os hubiera caído mucho mejor aún cuando estaba entonado”; “sobrio os resultaría un tanto cínico. Pero no se le podría culpar por ello; escribir guiones para radionovelas vuelve cínico al más santo y Tracy no era un santo”) utilizando un narrador omnisciente divertidísimo y que busca la complicidad con el lector. Con todo ello creó una novela divertida, ingeniosa, espléndidamente tejida, sin duda un clasicazo del género que no debe pasar desapercibido para nadie.

Y la joya de la corona entre estas maravillas, en lo más alto del podio, para Retrato de Humo de Bill Ballinger (1912-1980). Este escritor y guionista norteamericano creó en esta novela una de esas obras maestras imperecederas. Para ello utilizó uno de esos personajes que pasan a la historia por sus perversidades y grado de enrevesamiento: la protagonista femenina Krassy Almauniski, capaz de hacer cualquier cosa por ganarse un hueco en la sociedad (“Encontraba justo servirse del sexo, lo mismo que otras mujeres se servían de la educación, el talento o las relaciones sociales… o de un trabajo duro”). La historia comienza con la narración en primera persona del protagonista Danny April que, tras encontrar una foto de Krassy, se enamora y la empieza a buscar sin descanso. Todo es nebuloso, ella es un “retrato de humo”, él no sabe casi nada de ella y tiene que empezar a construir su historia hablando con las personas que la han conocido. El escritor alterna esta voz con la de un narrador omnisciente que refleja la historia de Krassy con todas sus vicisitudes. Ahí está la magia, él conoce parte de lo que es Krassy pero no todo, eso solo lo sabemos los lectores y cuenta lo que cree conveniente para que sea así; la narración no es lineal y hay elipsis en todo momento. De esta manera consigue que la historia sea muy fluida y enigmática según pasas las páginas, absorbente, sin esconder lo descarnado de la historia, pero sin regodearse en esa brutalidad palpable en cada página. El resultado, un final apoteósico que no hace más que subrayar un relato magnífico.
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Jun 01, 2010 Tim Niland rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-reads

A wild and rollicking crime story in the Elmore Leonard/Carl Hiaasen mold, Miami Blues follow the exploits of killer and ex-con Junior and his dim-witted "wife" Susie as they try to out maneuver Miami police Sargent Hoke Mosely as Junior goes on a city wide crime and killing spree. Willeford's characterizations are really the heart of this novel, as we follow Junior and Mosely through their lives and chosen careers, we see what drives them and what will eventually bring them together in a violen...more

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May 01, 2011 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-mystery, 2011-r, 5-0, bad-guys-rule, rubbermaid-treasure

Treasure of the Rubbermaids 10: Good Cop - Bad Cop

The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containers previously stored and forgotten at my parent’s house and untouched for almost 20 years. Thanks to my father dumping them back on me, I now spend my spare time unearthing lost treasures from their plastic depths.

Junior Frenger has just gotten out of prison in California, and he promptly heads to Miami with a pocket full of stolen cash and credit cards...more Treasure of the Rubbermaids 10: Good Cop - Bad Cop

The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containers previously stored and forgotten at my parent’s house and untouched for almost 20 years. Thanks to my father dumping them back on me, I now spend my spare time unearthing lost treasures from their plastic depths.

Junior Frenger has just gotten out of prison in California, and he promptly heads to Miami with a pocket full of stolen cash and credit cards. No sooner does he arrive at the airport than a Hare Krishna annoys him so Junior breaks his finger before leaving to embark on a one-man crime wave. Freakishly, the Krishna dies from the shock of the broken digit, and homicide detective Hoke Mosley gets the case.

Junior goes on to meet part-time call girl Susan, and then unlikely coincidence brings Hoke into contact with both of them. Hoke doesn’t realize that Junior is the guy who inadvertently killed the Krishna, but he picks up on Junior being an ex-con and starts nosing around him and Susan. This annoys Junior who goes on the offensive and ends up in a position to impersonate a police officer while complicating Hoke’s life.

This is a slick and original crime thriller with off-beat characters. Junior is described as a ‘blithe psychopath‘, and he lives up to that billing. Since he’s sure that he’ll end up in jail eventually no matter what he does, Junior is only interested in instant gratification and fast cash with no real concern about long term consequences. Susan is so grateful to have someone to take care of her that she quickly begins complying with Junior’s instructions.

Hoke isn’t your typical hero cop, either. Just over 40 with a failed marriage and a mouthful of false teeth as well as a taste for bourbon, Hoke‘s personal life is a mess. With every spare dime going towards alimony and child support, he has to live in a shabby hotel and can’t even keep up with his bar tab. Hoke’s also losing most of his friends on the police force as an increasingly dangerous Miami of the late ‘80s is causing most of them to flee to safer jobs.

Anyone looking for an fast paced crime novel with a dark sense of humor would enjoy this book. The movie version from 1990 with Alec Baldwin and Fred Ward is a good adaptation of this also.(less)

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Sep 03, 2008 Unbridled rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'd seen (and enjoyed) the movie of course and as a rule I never read a book after seeing the movie, but I came across Willeford's name in an interview with Jim Knipfel, who wrote the entertaining Slackjaw and spoke admiringly of his work. With a little research I discovered that no less an authority than Elmore Leonard said Willeford is the best crime writer in America. That's good enough for me. I also learned that Miami Blues was the first of a series of detective Hoke Moseley books. So I had...more

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Apr 07, 2009 John McDonald rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of flat-out great writing

Shelves: fiction

As I've been delving into the crime genre over the past year and a half, I was warned by several people that once I read Charles Willeford I would feel compelled by forces beyond my control to seek out and devour everything he ever wrote.

I now give you the same warning, because it's absolutely true.

Willeford is a masterful writer, crafting simple, direct, yet stylishly interesting sentences so that the narrative doesn't suffer from the same dry, matter-of-factness that hampered my enjoyment of...more

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Sep 18, 2009 Johnny rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don't why it took me so long to get to the Hoke Moseley books. I've read and enjoyed a lot of Willeford, but somehow these books just remained on my ever-growing stack.

A spare, quick read. There is no fat on this one. Great characters and an original approach. I highly recommend this one (Made into a good, underrated movie, too).

If I had any gripe, it is that some of the story hinges on a pretty big coincidence. But if you're willing to suspend a tad of disbelief, then you're in for a great ri...more

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Mar 05, 2013 Tomi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Perfectly paced, quick and fresh novel.

The narrative was constantly alternating between the good guy's and the bad guy's point of view. This decision was incredibly effective. The broken reasoning of the criminal was actually quite a distressing read at times. Equally painful was seeing how much the good guy stumbled.

I have never read a book set in Miami before, so the setting was suitably fresh for me. Sounds like a horrible place to live.

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Jan 06, 2010 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you haven't read a Hoke book, for God's sake READ A HOKE BOOK! A great vulnerable, real person of a character.

Good novel. Good movie.

Somebody took Hoke's gun and he's going to get it back. Can't have a better premise than that (although plenty of other authors could ruin a story based on such a premise). Excellent bad boy and sad girl side characters along the way.

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Oct 09, 2011 James Hoff rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: pulp

This was another Willeford adventure. The book has gotten lots of good reviews by friends but I found it hard to find the specialness of this particular title--it's def. genre fiction and a great story, but it doesn't really excel beyond that in the way the Willeford's other novels do. He's a great writer but perhaps better when not weighed down by detective-fiction constraints. Looking forward to reading the second title however. An okay Willeford is still a good book.

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Aug 20, 2011 Thomas Pluck rated it 5 of 5 stars

Dark, absurd, and cynical, this tale of an ex-con on a blitz through '80s Miami flows like water. Willeford writes like a Zen master. Detective Hoke Moseley is pathetic, but somehow good company. Junior Frenger is a perfectly conceived psychopath and Susan Waggoner, the abused prostitute he hooks up with, is a mystery. Willeford does so much with spare details. It's not a mystery, it's just a story, about two desperate people who collide with a cop at the bottom of his downward spiral, told as s...more

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Oct 18, 2011 Tracie rated it 5 of 5 stars

I realize this book might not be everyone's cup of tea, but this is basically everything I want in a book. Super violent, sort of hilarious, simply written, psychopath characters. I couldn't put it down. Why don't I read more crime novels? Well, I'm about to because I just ordered the other 3 books in the Hoke Moseley series.

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Feb 03, 2012 Steve rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: all_star_multiple_readings, re-read, read-in-2012, read-on-kindle

The only downside to reading Willeford's crime novels is there are so few of them. Unlike many other fine novelists, he resisted the urge to gussy up his protagonist: he lets Hoke be Hoke. This novel should be distributed in writing classes as a shining example of how it's done.

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Jun 01, 2009 Scott E rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-crime-fiction, favorites, own-crime-thrillers

I only have a few Crime Fiction reads that I've given 5-stars. Miami Blues clearly joins them. I doubt that I'll like Willeford as much as I like James Lee Burke, Elmore Leonard, Michael Connelly and a few others...but this book is top notch crime fiction.

Kicked off by a series of incredible (although believable) coincidences, the narrative alternates between psychopath Freddy Frenger and Miami Homicide detective Hoke Moseley (who is the protagonist of three additional Willeford outings). Like...more

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Aug 02, 2010 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this because Walter Mosley gave the author a shout out in an interview a while back and wanted to check him out. It did not disappoint! Very stylized late 70s/early 80s mystery set in seedy Miami.

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Sep 16, 2012 Aramys rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Buena novela policíaca, una buena historia a dos bandas, contada desde dos miradas, con un policía perdedor y un asesino engreído. Me ha gustado mucho el sargento, un perdedor nato, un hombre gris y decadente, pero con un toque cómico, que sabe reírse de si mismo. Es una novela triste y cómica, con un trasfondo gris, frío, triste, pero con tintes alegres, situaciones, esperanzas…

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Dec 04, 2011 John Cain rated it 4 of 5 stars

It is hard not to like a Wileford book. The plots move along and the characters are unique. In this book, more than others I'v read of his, he does an amzzing job of telling the story from the various points of view of the characters.

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Feb 16, 2011 Carol Cantrell rated it 4 of 5 stars

My husband suggested I read something by Willeford and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Great feel for 1980's Miami, tough and gritty. The "dumb" prostetute is a great surprise. A really fun noir read.

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May 22, 2010 Lipkin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Very unusual noir mystery. Carried along more by characterization, description, mundane (but interesting) detail--than by action.

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Feb 23, 2009 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book from the first page on. Non-stop crime, sex, action, pimping, banging. Reminded me a lot of GTA Vice City.

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About Charles Willeford

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...more 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.(less)

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Quotes from Miami Blues

“I can't see any point to hanging around a Burger King all day, no matter how much money you make. .... I'll tell you why. Your life would depend on the random desires of people who wanted a hamburger. So you can just forget about Burger King.” — 1 person liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216.Miami_Blues?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320443019l/216.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216.Miami_Blues?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Miami Blues by Charles Willeford[/url]

Miami Blues (Hoke Moseley #1)

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