What do you think?
Rate this book
Hoke Moseley #1
Miami Blues
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 cases wondering who would want to beat him into unconsciousness, steal his gun and badge, and most importantly, make off with his prized dentures. But the pieces never quite add up to revenge, and the few clues he has keep connecting to a dimwitted hooker, and her ex-con boyfriend and the bizarre murder of a Hare Krishna pimp.
Chronically depressed, constantly strapped for money, always willing to bend the rules a bit, Hoke Moseley is hardly what you think of as the perfect cop, but he is one of the the greatest detective creations of all time.
Chronically depressed, constantly strapped for money, always willing to bend the rules a bit, Hoke Moseley is hardly what you think of as the perfect cop, but he is one of the the greatest detective creations of all time.
191 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
147 people are currently reading
4319 people want to read
About the author
Charles Willeford
85 books429 followersCharles 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 445 reviews
September 6, 2020
Don't Watch the movie, read the book, in fact read all the books by Mr. Willeford. Sadly he is not creating any new books. Published in 1984 and this is the second time I have read this book.
High rating for enjoy-ability if you like a bit of a hard boiled edge, and a great place to be introduced to this author.
In “Miami blues” by Charles Willeford, the first of his Hoke Mosely series, we find Freddy Frenger,28, a body builder, fresh out of San Quentin. Freddy arrives in Miami with some stolen credit cards, he immediately breaks the finger of an annoying Hare Krishna beggar at the airport. He gets a posh hotel, he promptly teams up with air-headed amateur hooker Susan Waggoner, even though she's slow to oblige Freddy's taste for anal sex.
Meanwhile, After a brutal day investigating a quadruple homicide, Hoke Mosely our homicide detective, a 42 divorced cop, living in the El Dorado Hotel, is investigating the death of that Hare Krishna beggar, who died of shock. and who just happened to have been Susan Waggoner's incestuous brother Marty. So the curious cop and the paranoid psycho soon cross paths. It seems Hoke gets too curious and Freddy beats him up, destroys his false teeth, steals his badge, which comes in handy for assorted robberies, frames Hoke as a bribe-taker.
Eventually, if only to protect himself, the much battered Hoke must track this cheerful monster down, but not before Freddy has bought a house in the suburbs, been run over by a car, and killed a bunch of innocent bystanders.
Chronically depressed, constantly strapped for money, always willing to bend the rules a bit, Hoke Moseley is hardly what you think of as the perfect cop.
Charles Willeford has been, an orphan, hobo, painter, poet, boxer, book critic, decorated tank commander, actor, truck driver, teacher, author and inveterate prankster.
A funny story: One of the Hoke Moseley sequels is called “Sideswipe”. Willeford’s widow Betsy, says that not long after that book came out, Willeford got a package in the mail. When he opened it, he found a hardbound copy of Sideswipe that someone had shot. Accompanying the book was a note, written in all-caps, saying “It’s a crime to charge $15.95 for shit like this.” It was signed, “A Dissatisfied Customer.”
High rating for enjoy-ability if you like a bit of a hard boiled edge, and a great place to be introduced to this author.
In “Miami blues” by Charles Willeford, the first of his Hoke Mosely series, we find Freddy Frenger,28, a body builder, fresh out of San Quentin. Freddy arrives in Miami with some stolen credit cards, he immediately breaks the finger of an annoying Hare Krishna beggar at the airport. He gets a posh hotel, he promptly teams up with air-headed amateur hooker Susan Waggoner, even though she's slow to oblige Freddy's taste for anal sex.
Meanwhile, After a brutal day investigating a quadruple homicide, Hoke Mosely our homicide detective, a 42 divorced cop, living in the El Dorado Hotel, is investigating the death of that Hare Krishna beggar, who died of shock. and who just happened to have been Susan Waggoner's incestuous brother Marty. So the curious cop and the paranoid psycho soon cross paths. It seems Hoke gets too curious and Freddy beats him up, destroys his false teeth, steals his badge, which comes in handy for assorted robberies, frames Hoke as a bribe-taker.
Eventually, if only to protect himself, the much battered Hoke must track this cheerful monster down, but not before Freddy has bought a house in the suburbs, been run over by a car, and killed a bunch of innocent bystanders.
Chronically depressed, constantly strapped for money, always willing to bend the rules a bit, Hoke Moseley is hardly what you think of as the perfect cop.
Charles Willeford has been, an orphan, hobo, painter, poet, boxer, book critic, decorated tank commander, actor, truck driver, teacher, author and inveterate prankster.
A funny story: One of the Hoke Moseley sequels is called “Sideswipe”. Willeford’s widow Betsy, says that not long after that book came out, Willeford got a package in the mail. When he opened it, he found a hardbound copy of Sideswipe that someone had shot. Accompanying the book was a note, written in all-caps, saying “It’s a crime to charge $15.95 for shit like this.” It was signed, “A Dissatisfied Customer.”
September 14, 2020
Muy buena.
Es del tipo de novela que a mi me gusta. Unos personajes bien perfilados; una trama redonda; humor, un poco de sexo y violencia.
Un libro con las páginas justas y adecuadas. No se trata de ser más largo o más corto, sino de adaptarse a lo que uno quiere contar. Y Willeford lo clava. Y esto tiene mucho mérito porqué esta novela se podría alargar mucho más.
Podrían ser cinco estrellas, pero quiero más de Charles Willeford. Seguro que las consigue.
Very good.
It's the kind of novel I like. Well defined characters; a round plot; humor, a little sex and violence.
A book with the right and proper pages. It's not about being longer or shorter, but about adapting to what you want to tell. And Willeford sticks it. And this has much merit because this novel could be much longer.
It could be five stars, but I want more from Charles Willeford. Sure he gets them.
Es del tipo de novela que a mi me gusta. Unos personajes bien perfilados; una trama redonda; humor, un poco de sexo y violencia.
Un libro con las páginas justas y adecuadas. No se trata de ser más largo o más corto, sino de adaptarse a lo que uno quiere contar. Y Willeford lo clava. Y esto tiene mucho mérito porqué esta novela se podría alargar mucho más.
Podrían ser cinco estrellas, pero quiero más de Charles Willeford. Seguro que las consigue.
Very good.
It's the kind of novel I like. Well defined characters; a round plot; humor, a little sex and violence.
A book with the right and proper pages. It's not about being longer or shorter, but about adapting to what you want to tell. And Willeford sticks it. And this has much merit because this novel could be much longer.
It could be five stars, but I want more from Charles Willeford. Sure he gets them.
May 2, 2020
I first read Miami Blues sometime in the eighties - before the 1990 movie - but rereading it now thirty years later, it's hard to read it without picturing the characters as portrayed in the movie. That there is the power of cinema. It's still an awesome book even rereading it and knowing full well what's going to happen. It is strikingly different in tone and affect from Willeford's earlier pulp works so much so that you wonder how that could be.
What's really remarkable about Miami Blues and its sequels (and no I haven't read the secret unpublished manuscript of the original dark nasty sequel) is how could Willeford really became at storytelling. Each page and even each paragraph tells a whole story. There are oddities that he throws in seemingly effortlessly like the Hare Krishna dying of a broken finger or the casual mentions of incest.
And then there are these amazing characters like the dimwitted prostitute who wakes up each day as wide-eyed and innocent as the day she was born. Or the psychopathic killer who decides to become her platonic husband. Or the homicide detective who is forever losing his chompers (dentures) and lives in a fleabag hotel because he sends every other paycheck for alimony.
The actual plot plays second fiddle to all these classic scenes like the ex-con and the cop having dinner together or Junior going to "work" at the mall. Some of what takes place is the gallows humor of the police station but it's so funny you almost forget the one-man crime wave Junior is.
An absolutely breathtaking work.
What's really remarkable about Miami Blues and its sequels (and no I haven't read the secret unpublished manuscript of the original dark nasty sequel) is how could Willeford really became at storytelling. Each page and even each paragraph tells a whole story. There are oddities that he throws in seemingly effortlessly like the Hare Krishna dying of a broken finger or the casual mentions of incest.
And then there are these amazing characters like the dimwitted prostitute who wakes up each day as wide-eyed and innocent as the day she was born. Or the psychopathic killer who decides to become her platonic husband. Or the homicide detective who is forever losing his chompers (dentures) and lives in a fleabag hotel because he sends every other paycheck for alimony.
The actual plot plays second fiddle to all these classic scenes like the ex-con and the cop having dinner together or Junior going to "work" at the mall. Some of what takes place is the gallows humor of the police station but it's so funny you almost forget the one-man crime wave Junior is.
An absolutely breathtaking work.
May 1, 2011
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.
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.
October 5, 2023
This was great. It is 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. The book is off to a great start with Freddie Fenger killing a Hare Krishna at the airport.
There is the detective Hoke Moseley, who cuts a sorry figure. He is almost like a supporting character. He has false teeth which gets thrown out of the window twice :) and cannot seem to loose weight. The very opposite of the token tough cop hero.
Willeford goes into great detail about how much everything costs and how much everyone earns and spends. Money and its acquisition is the main motive of all the characters. But no amount of money seems to be enough. Everyone is screwed and is involved in some desperate scheme to make a handsome amount of cash which can be used to finance a scheme which they expect would make their life easier.
There is the detective Hoke Moseley, who cuts a sorry figure. He is almost like a supporting character. He has false teeth which gets thrown out of the window twice :) and cannot seem to loose weight. The very opposite of the token tough cop hero.
Willeford goes into great detail about how much everything costs and how much everyone earns and spends. Money and its acquisition is the main motive of all the characters. But no amount of money seems to be enough. Everyone is screwed and is involved in some desperate scheme to make a handsome amount of cash which can be used to finance a scheme which they expect would make their life easier.
October 8, 2015
With Miami Blues, veteran crime fiction writer Charles Willeford introduces Miami Homicide detective Hoke Moseley who has to rank as one of the most unique and interesting fictional homicide cops ever to work a case. He's middle-aged, divorced, poverty-stricken (because of the divorce) and living in a crappy hotel room. He's not particularly attractive and has little luck with women. (Did I mention that he wears dentures which he seems to be losing all too often?) Still, for all that, he's a very sympathetic character and you can't help rooting for the guy.
As the book opens, an ex-con named Junior Frenger arrives at Miami International. Junior is a psychopath with big ambitions and as he's walking through the airport, he accidentally kills a Hare Krishna who has annoyed him. Junior steals some luggage, checks into a hotel and makes a date with a hooker. The hooker turns out to be a fairly spacey community college student named Suzie Waggoner who immediately falls for Junior's line of B.S. and moves in with him.
Hoke Moseley is assigned the murder case and manages to track down Suzie and Junior whom he suspects of the crime. Proving it will be another matter altogether, and the dynamics among the three principal characters are very interesting and entertaining.
This is an off-beat crime novel with moments both serious and hilariously funny, and fans of crime fiction who haven't yet discovered Willeford might want to search out this book. Fortunately, the entire Hoke Moseley series has recently been released in brand-new editions which are easy to find.
As a final note, an excellent movie was made from this novel, starring Alec Baldwin as Junior and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Suzie. Fred Ward plays Hoke and is perfectly cast in the role. This is one of those rare cases when the movie really does do justice to the book.
As the book opens, an ex-con named Junior Frenger arrives at Miami International. Junior is a psychopath with big ambitions and as he's walking through the airport, he accidentally kills a Hare Krishna who has annoyed him. Junior steals some luggage, checks into a hotel and makes a date with a hooker. The hooker turns out to be a fairly spacey community college student named Suzie Waggoner who immediately falls for Junior's line of B.S. and moves in with him.
Hoke Moseley is assigned the murder case and manages to track down Suzie and Junior whom he suspects of the crime. Proving it will be another matter altogether, and the dynamics among the three principal characters are very interesting and entertaining.
This is an off-beat crime novel with moments both serious and hilariously funny, and fans of crime fiction who haven't yet discovered Willeford might want to search out this book. Fortunately, the entire Hoke Moseley series has recently been released in brand-new editions which are easy to find.
As a final note, an excellent movie was made from this novel, starring Alec Baldwin as Junior and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Suzie. Fred Ward plays Hoke and is perfectly cast in the role. This is one of those rare cases when the movie really does do justice to the book.
October 11, 2021
Recently released psychopath Freddy Frenger’s arrived in Miami and kicked off his latest crime spree with the murder of a Hare Krishna. It’s up to Detective Sergeant Hoke Mosely to take Freddy off the streets!
Miami Blues is an excellent crime novel and the first book featuring Charles Willeford’s recurring character Hoke Mosely. Willeford’s prose is so smooth, the pages fly by - he immediately takes you into the scene and effortlessly shows you the characters so clearly. I’ve never been to Florida, let alone Miami, and yet I feel like I got to know it a bit thanks to Willeford’s descriptions of the city and its surrounding counties. It’s a crime novel but this is superb writing regardless of genre.
I loved the villain Freddy, whose actions were always interesting and unpredictable, and Hoke is a great character too - a smart, capable cop but also vulnerable, thoughtful and very human. There are some novelistic contrivances in play - the Hare Krishna connecting to Freddy’s girl, Susan Waggoner - but they only make the story more entertaining so it didn’t bother me.
There are also moments where Willeford plays it unexpectedly realistically. Like when Hoke catches up to Freddy near the end and Freddy runs off - I’ve seen too many crime/thriller stories now to expect a chase scene, but Willeford doesn’t do that. Instead Hoke realises his car’s blocking traffic so he moves it to the side, then gets a coffee and a sandwich, thinking about how to play it, then makes the smart policing move, going by the book, which ends up working out. I love that Willeford could make the normal a surprising element in a fictional story.
Generally it’s a snappy read but I felt it slowed down in the middle with Hoke convalescing for a bit and Freddy carrying on with his petty crimes, though even then the writing was masterful. Miami Blues (I prefer the original title - Kiss Your Ass Good-Bye - because it’s funnier and trashier, and the one he settled on is somewhat forgettable/unimpressive) is a great example of the importance of storytelling over story. On paper, it’s a generic cops’n’robbers story but in Willeford’s hands it’s uniquely compelling.
Miami Blues is a fantastic novel and I’m delighted to make Charles Willeford’s acquaintance - I'm definitely going to read more from this brilliant author.
Miami Blues is an excellent crime novel and the first book featuring Charles Willeford’s recurring character Hoke Mosely. Willeford’s prose is so smooth, the pages fly by - he immediately takes you into the scene and effortlessly shows you the characters so clearly. I’ve never been to Florida, let alone Miami, and yet I feel like I got to know it a bit thanks to Willeford’s descriptions of the city and its surrounding counties. It’s a crime novel but this is superb writing regardless of genre.
I loved the villain Freddy, whose actions were always interesting and unpredictable, and Hoke is a great character too - a smart, capable cop but also vulnerable, thoughtful and very human. There are some novelistic contrivances in play - the Hare Krishna connecting to Freddy’s girl, Susan Waggoner - but they only make the story more entertaining so it didn’t bother me.
There are also moments where Willeford plays it unexpectedly realistically. Like when Hoke catches up to Freddy near the end and Freddy runs off - I’ve seen too many crime/thriller stories now to expect a chase scene, but Willeford doesn’t do that. Instead Hoke realises his car’s blocking traffic so he moves it to the side, then gets a coffee and a sandwich, thinking about how to play it, then makes the smart policing move, going by the book, which ends up working out. I love that Willeford could make the normal a surprising element in a fictional story.
Generally it’s a snappy read but I felt it slowed down in the middle with Hoke convalescing for a bit and Freddy carrying on with his petty crimes, though even then the writing was masterful. Miami Blues (I prefer the original title - Kiss Your Ass Good-Bye - because it’s funnier and trashier, and the one he settled on is somewhat forgettable/unimpressive) is a great example of the importance of storytelling over story. On paper, it’s a generic cops’n’robbers story but in Willeford’s hands it’s uniquely compelling.
Miami Blues is a fantastic novel and I’m delighted to make Charles Willeford’s acquaintance - I'm definitely going to read more from this brilliant author.
September 27, 2025
“I just want to go back to Okeechobee. All I’ve had is trouble of some kind or other ever since I came down here. What I’d say, if you asked me about Miami, I’d say it’s not a good place for a single girl to be”--Sally Waggoner, a call-girl who had an abortion of a fetus conceived with her brother Marty, who was just killed in his work as a Hare Krishna, begging money at the Miami Internatioal Airport.
After reading the beautiful but anguished Wallander series by Henning Mankell, and seeing the BBC film series adaptation ending in tears, I was looking for a few books that were lighter, older, books I had never read that were seen by readers in the mystery/ detective/noir genre as classics, and this came up. I’ve had also recently read the amazing but tough Ride the Pink Horse and Fat City, both great but neither of which are a relief from the existential despair of Wallander. I wasn’t looking for screwball level funny, but just something relatively light.
So Miami Blues, by Charles Willeford sort of fit the bill; it’s kinda sleazy-lite, with some real police work and a few laughs, featuring ex-con Junior Frenger and Susan Waggoner, a community college student putting herself through school as a call girl, through which she meets Junior. These two are great, entertaining characters, not the brightest lights on the tree, let’s say, but not completely cartoon characters, either. The writing is really good, actually.
This might be offensive to some of you, I warn you, but I found it funny: Junior moves in with Susan, but gets a little jealous of Pablo, her pimp: “Did you have sex with him before you started working for him?!” “No, no! Well, I did give him a blow job, and then he gave me SO MANY many tips! Boy, that Pablo knows a LOT! But no, no sex.”
Junior insists that they have a “platonic” relationship, though they do have sex regularly with each other. Neither of them know what the word “platonic” means.
The book opens with Junior, arriving in Miami from California where he was in prison, meeting the annoying Hare Krishna brother in the airport, bending his finger back on him. Bro Marty actually goes into shock, has a heart attack, and dies. Then Junior meets Susan, who actually takes him along to her community college English class, where they are studying haiku. After she has to identify her brother’s body, she doesn’t seem that upset, until class time approaches:
“After everything that has happened, I was afraid my teacher was going to make us write a haiku.”
“That’s okay,” Junior says. “I’ll write it for you, and then i’ll explain it to you in case he asks you about it.”
Cringy stories about shallow dumb-as-a-rock folks are always worth a laugh.
The detective in the novel is Hoke Moseley, another pretty much loser. He has false teeth, which get thrown out of the window a couple times. He’s divorced, broke, living in a flop house. He’s featured in a series of novels, but is so far less interesting than the two hapless villains. In the end, Hoke catches up to the fact that it was Junior who had done the finger-bending, and Susan finally learns this, too. And so, this (supposedly!!) dumb hooker? Well, let’s just say in the last chapter there’s a couple amusing surprises. I like it when the author makes you laugh in a kinda superior way at all the dumb people and then turns the laughter on (dumb) you. Wait a minute! Whuuut!? That kind of misdirection, yup.
So it’s a good book! It does what it sets out to do, to entertain! I’ll check out the second in the series before I return to gloom and doom.
After reading the beautiful but anguished Wallander series by Henning Mankell, and seeing the BBC film series adaptation ending in tears, I was looking for a few books that were lighter, older, books I had never read that were seen by readers in the mystery/ detective/noir genre as classics, and this came up. I’ve had also recently read the amazing but tough Ride the Pink Horse and Fat City, both great but neither of which are a relief from the existential despair of Wallander. I wasn’t looking for screwball level funny, but just something relatively light.
So Miami Blues, by Charles Willeford sort of fit the bill; it’s kinda sleazy-lite, with some real police work and a few laughs, featuring ex-con Junior Frenger and Susan Waggoner, a community college student putting herself through school as a call girl, through which she meets Junior. These two are great, entertaining characters, not the brightest lights on the tree, let’s say, but not completely cartoon characters, either. The writing is really good, actually.
This might be offensive to some of you, I warn you, but I found it funny: Junior moves in with Susan, but gets a little jealous of Pablo, her pimp: “Did you have sex with him before you started working for him?!” “No, no! Well, I did give him a blow job, and then he gave me SO MANY many tips! Boy, that Pablo knows a LOT! But no, no sex.”
Junior insists that they have a “platonic” relationship, though they do have sex regularly with each other. Neither of them know what the word “platonic” means.
The book opens with Junior, arriving in Miami from California where he was in prison, meeting the annoying Hare Krishna brother in the airport, bending his finger back on him. Bro Marty actually goes into shock, has a heart attack, and dies. Then Junior meets Susan, who actually takes him along to her community college English class, where they are studying haiku. After she has to identify her brother’s body, she doesn’t seem that upset, until class time approaches:
“After everything that has happened, I was afraid my teacher was going to make us write a haiku.”
“That’s okay,” Junior says. “I’ll write it for you, and then i’ll explain it to you in case he asks you about it.”
Cringy stories about shallow dumb-as-a-rock folks are always worth a laugh.
The detective in the novel is Hoke Moseley, another pretty much loser. He has false teeth, which get thrown out of the window a couple times. He’s divorced, broke, living in a flop house. He’s featured in a series of novels, but is so far less interesting than the two hapless villains. In the end, Hoke catches up to the fact that it was Junior who had done the finger-bending, and Susan finally learns this, too. And so, this (supposedly!!) dumb hooker? Well, let’s just say in the last chapter there’s a couple amusing surprises. I like it when the author makes you laugh in a kinda superior way at all the dumb people and then turns the laughter on (dumb) you. Wait a minute! Whuuut!? That kind of misdirection, yup.
So it’s a good book! It does what it sets out to do, to entertain! I’ll check out the second in the series before I return to gloom and doom.
July 25, 2019
I picked this up after reading the review by my GR Friend Cbj, and I wholeheartedly recommend that you read his review. You can find it on the top page of the community reviews section.
I find it hard to define why I like some crime novels and not others, but in my opinion, some suffer from over-elaborate plots or overdone characters. Charles Willeford avoids both those pitfalls in the first of his books featuring Miami detective Hoke Moseley, who isn’t one of life’s winners. A forty-something sergeant who wears dentures, he’s divorced and has some pretty big financial problems, and lives in crappy accommodation. He also spends most of this novel wondering what the heck is going on. There are two other main characters. We are introduced right at the beginning to the villain, Freddy Frenger, who views other people entirely through the lens of what he can get from them. The novel’s perspective switches between those of Moseley and Frenger, whilst the third main character is Freddy’s girlfriend, Susan Waggoner. Modern female readers might get frustrated at Susan, a victim of teenage abuse who is mostly (though not entirely) passive in her relationship with Freddy, and who seems to have limited aspirations. Of course, there are some women who are like that, just as there are many who aren’t.
This is an entertaining and super-easy read, and for me Willeford gets the mood just right. I’ve been looking for a while for a new crime series in the noir or hardboiled category, so thanks Cbj!
I find it hard to define why I like some crime novels and not others, but in my opinion, some suffer from over-elaborate plots or overdone characters. Charles Willeford avoids both those pitfalls in the first of his books featuring Miami detective Hoke Moseley, who isn’t one of life’s winners. A forty-something sergeant who wears dentures, he’s divorced and has some pretty big financial problems, and lives in crappy accommodation. He also spends most of this novel wondering what the heck is going on. There are two other main characters. We are introduced right at the beginning to the villain, Freddy Frenger, who views other people entirely through the lens of what he can get from them. The novel’s perspective switches between those of Moseley and Frenger, whilst the third main character is Freddy’s girlfriend, Susan Waggoner. Modern female readers might get frustrated at Susan, a victim of teenage abuse who is mostly (though not entirely) passive in her relationship with Freddy, and who seems to have limited aspirations. Of course, there are some women who are like that, just as there are many who aren’t.
This is an entertaining and super-easy read, and for me Willeford gets the mood just right. I’ve been looking for a while for a new crime series in the noir or hardboiled category, so thanks Cbj!
September 4, 2014
Miami Blues is a bacon-decked, cheese-drenched, all-beef burger with a side of crisp, greasy, cayenne-peppered fries and a combo-size (Xtra-large) plastic cup full of more whiskey than cola. In other words it's an off-beat, breezy crime novel that I swallowed more than chewed over the course of one evening of reading and drinking alone. One star is a burp, the next a congratulatory pat on my tummy, then a satisfied knick at my teeth with a toothpick, and the fourth the pleasant surprise of a few patches of cheese stuck to the empty burger wrapper, which I enthusiastically pried free with tongue and tooth.
A charming psychopath and his ditzy babe, casually corrupt and begrudgingly decent cops; meandering conversations built upon cool, punchy dialogue; a few unexpected scenes of brutal violence; gallows humor and false teeth: what more is there for me to say in this review?
For dessert: vinegar pie.
A charming psychopath and his ditzy babe, casually corrupt and begrudgingly decent cops; meandering conversations built upon cool, punchy dialogue; a few unexpected scenes of brutal violence; gallows humor and false teeth: what more is there for me to say in this review?
For dessert: vinegar pie.
March 4, 2020
Very entertaining crime caper written with a simple, effortless style and a compelling narrative structure. Chapters alternate POV between the criminal, "Junior" Frenger and his dimwitted girlfriend, and Miami homicide detective Hoke Moseley. These eventually converge in a final showdown of sorts.
This one is all about the characters, and they are wonderfully amusing. Hoke, a sad sack of a detective is middle aged, divorced, deeply in debt and lives alone in a cheap hotel in Miami Beach. He's not particularly tough, quick witted or smart, but he's got a kind of even-keeled manner that keeps him plodding forward despite any obstacles, including any abuse dished out to his dentures.
"Junior" Frenger, on the other hand, is a blithe and hopelessly naive thief, prone to rash action and violence. He's unconcerned by the consequences of his actions, whether shaking down a pickpocket at the mall or gunning down a shop owner. His sudden eruptions of violence make for a compelling story that's more crime than comedy, but his outlandish naivete and dimwittedness make the story almost laughable. It's a hard combination to pull off, yet Willeford does an admirable job.
This one is all about the characters, and they are wonderfully amusing. Hoke, a sad sack of a detective is middle aged, divorced, deeply in debt and lives alone in a cheap hotel in Miami Beach. He's not particularly tough, quick witted or smart, but he's got a kind of even-keeled manner that keeps him plodding forward despite any obstacles, including any abuse dished out to his dentures.
"Junior" Frenger, on the other hand, is a blithe and hopelessly naive thief, prone to rash action and violence. He's unconcerned by the consequences of his actions, whether shaking down a pickpocket at the mall or gunning down a shop owner. His sudden eruptions of violence make for a compelling story that's more crime than comedy, but his outlandish naivete and dimwittedness make the story almost laughable. It's a hard combination to pull off, yet Willeford does an admirable job.
February 20, 2022
CARRAMBA CHE SORPRESA! QUENTIN TARANTINO E' QUI!!!!
Una piacevole sorpresa è stato questo libro. Un hard boiled colmo di ironia, scritto con intelligenza, ambientato in modo realistico in una Miami degli anni ’80, che penso assomigli alla Miami di oggi, meta di arrivo degli immigrati cubani, i Marielitos, che vanno a riempire le fila della povertà, della criminalità e della prostituzione. Non sono loro i protagonisti delle vicende, però, pur essendo un sottofondo presente e ben caratterizzato. E’ Junior, un criminale psicopatico di pura razza bianca appena uscito dall’ultimo soggiorno in carcere in California e sbarcato a Miami per organizzarsi una vita “normale”, di uomo di famiglia, tutto casa e lavoro. Quale lavoro? Sorvoliamo. Il caso lo fa incontrare con il sergente Hoke Moseley, e dal caso nascono sparatorie, rapine, omicidi, violenze, tutte originate dalla personalità criminale e psicotica di Junior.
Se il genere piace, ne consiglio caldamente la lettura. Ti tiene incollato alle pagine fino alla fine che è una meraviglia.
Una piacevole sorpresa è stato questo libro. Un hard boiled colmo di ironia, scritto con intelligenza, ambientato in modo realistico in una Miami degli anni ’80, che penso assomigli alla Miami di oggi, meta di arrivo degli immigrati cubani, i Marielitos, che vanno a riempire le fila della povertà, della criminalità e della prostituzione. Non sono loro i protagonisti delle vicende, però, pur essendo un sottofondo presente e ben caratterizzato. E’ Junior, un criminale psicopatico di pura razza bianca appena uscito dall’ultimo soggiorno in carcere in California e sbarcato a Miami per organizzarsi una vita “normale”, di uomo di famiglia, tutto casa e lavoro. Quale lavoro? Sorvoliamo. Il caso lo fa incontrare con il sergente Hoke Moseley, e dal caso nascono sparatorie, rapine, omicidi, violenze, tutte originate dalla personalità criminale e psicotica di Junior.
Se il genere piace, ne consiglio caldamente la lettura. Ti tiene incollato alle pagine fino alla fine che è una meraviglia.
August 10, 2018
Fantastic novel.
It starts off ultra-strong. Perhaps with a stronger personality than any other third person-narrated detective novels and kind of meanders after a while, but it went above and beyond of what I expected. Charles Willeford writes like Elmore Leonard meets Quentin Tarantino meets Dashiell Hammett. He has a keen sense of observation, tremendous humor and originality. If you're going to read one detective novel this summer, read this one.
It starts off ultra-strong. Perhaps with a stronger personality than any other third person-narrated detective novels and kind of meanders after a while, but it went above and beyond of what I expected. Charles Willeford writes like Elmore Leonard meets Quentin Tarantino meets Dashiell Hammett. He has a keen sense of observation, tremendous humor and originality. If you're going to read one detective novel this summer, read this one.
December 27, 2014
I just want to go back to Okeechobee. All I’ve had is trouble of some kind or other ever since I came down here. What I’d say, if you asked me about Miami, I’d say it’s not a good place for a single girl to be.
Susan Waggoner has reasons aplenty to complain. She’s barely in her twenties, and she’s already a runaway from her small town in the Glades, has been abused by her own brother, had an abortion followed by a budding career in prostitution. And that’s all before she gets caught in a deadly game between Miami Police Sergeant Hoke Moseley and a ruthless criminal just landed from California:
Frederick J Frenger, who prefered to be called Junior instead of Freddy, was twenty-eight years old. He looked older because his life had been a hard one; the lines at the corners of his mouth seemed too deep for a man in his late twenties. His eyes were a dark shade of blue, and his untrimmed blond eyebrows were almost white. His nose had been broken and reset poorly, but some women considered him attractive. His skin was unblemished and deeply tanned from long afternoons spent in the yard at San Quentin. At five-nine, he should have had a slighter build, but prolonged sessions with weights, pumping iron in the yard, as well as playing handball, had built up his chest, shoulders, and arms to almost grotesque proportions. He had developed his stomach muscles to the point that he could stand, arms akimbo, and roll them in waves.
I have chosen this long passage for two reasons : first, the novel spends much more time inside the insane head of Freddy than in the company of Hoke Moseley (this is not a spoiler, and no mystery actually, since we are following the events as they develop and not investigating them after the murder); and secondly, I really like the style of presentation, hard edged but with the occasional flash of black humour, eminently readable (that’s why the term page turner was invented). Willeford knows best how to fade in the background and let his characters determine the dialogue and the style of presentation.
Freddy is also the reason I didn’t add the final star to my review: he is well constructed, for a psychopat, but I disliked him intensely right from the start, with his casual atitude towards violence and total disregard for other people’s property. He feels entitled to grab everything he can, seeing himself as a wolf among sheep. He is completely self-absorbed and ready to use his new girlfriend (Susan) both as a sex toy (“platonic marriage” means something else than what I learned in school for Freddy) and as his criminal accomplice.
“You use that word a lot.”
“What word?”
“ ‘Fair’. Now that you’re twenty years old – “
“Only by one month – “
“- you’d better forget about things like ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’. Even when people talk about the weather, ‘fair’ doesn’t mean anything.”
In the opposite corner sits Hoke Moseley, an experienced criminal investigator cut from the same cloth as the classic hard-boiled gumshoes: divorced, alcoholic, cynical, heavy fisted. He’s got the blues big time, justifying the title of this first installment in the series dedicated to him.
Any way he looked at it, it was a rotten business. may refer both to the current affair and to his life in general, who is not satisfied to kick him in the teeth, but goes on to stamp on them, throw them out windows and steal them ( it’s a sort of running joke in the book with his false dentures)
The third main actor in the drama is the city of Miami, called in one of the opening scenes “the original Sin City”, where shop owners are not satisfied with safe boxes and secure windows,, pimps and drug dealers rule the streets and the police feel naked without their guns. Hoke exclaims at one point:
It really feels funny as hell driving and walking around Miami without a weapon.
By the end, there is too thin a line between the cops and the robbers, with Freddy getting in trouble for finally trying to help a shop owner, and Hoke turning vigilante in his quest to catch up and exact revenge on him. And this amalgam of dark grey tones instead of black and white sharp contrast is probably one more reason why the novel stands above the usual fare in crime thrillers. My last quote is a bitter reminder that the people we trust to keep order and peace are much to often ready to tamper with the evidence in order to ‘help’ a colleague in trouble:
You’re in some jurisdictional trouble if you don’t get your story straight. And here’s the way you tell it, and this is the way we’ll write it up...
I am planning to read more from Charles Willeford, hoping he is as skillful in his prose and convincing in his characters as in here.
May 20, 2023
Miami Blues is the first book in a 1980s series of hardboiled, black comedy crime stories introducing Detective Hoke Moseley of the Miami homicide squad. Through a string of seemingly unrelated crimes Moseley uses his instinct, luck, and doggedness to pinpoint the perpetrator as being a man who goes by various aliases but prefers being called Junior. Junior has just been released from prison in California and has come to Miami to start a new life (or at least commit crimes in a state where he hasn’t any prior offenses). I couldn’t decide who was more intriguing Moseley or Junior!
The whole time I was reading Miami Blues I couldn’t help thinking that it felt like a mixture of two books I've enjoyed before: Raymond Chandler’s private eye character Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep and Elmore Leonard’s career criminal character Chili Palmer in Get Shorty. Then there are the black comedy elements that had me shaking my head at the dumb luck and dumb choices some characters made. While there is frequent violence present in all these books, it is described in a matter-of-fact way rather than focusing on gore.
There is a 1990 screen adaptation of Miami Blues by the same name. While it has several well-known actors starring in it, that didn’t help the film’s quality in my opinion. In fact, I would advise skipping the film altogether. Besides the acting being flat or actors speaking it fake accents, the film’s brevity causes it to leave out points that would have added to the black comedy, and, finally, it failed to introduce a few side characters (so the viewer must assume their connection).
I’m a fan of noir and hardboiled vintage books. However, this book was a delightful find for me – a new author! Never heard of Charles Willeford but this man (according to his Wiki page) lived a varied and colorful life, and it shows in his writing. I finished this book in just over a day’s time because of the breezy writing and the fast-paced plot. I will definitely be following it up with the next in the series New Hope for the Dead .
The whole time I was reading Miami Blues I couldn’t help thinking that it felt like a mixture of two books I've enjoyed before: Raymond Chandler’s private eye character Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep and Elmore Leonard’s career criminal character Chili Palmer in Get Shorty. Then there are the black comedy elements that had me shaking my head at the dumb luck and dumb choices some characters made. While there is frequent violence present in all these books, it is described in a matter-of-fact way rather than focusing on gore.
There is a 1990 screen adaptation of Miami Blues by the same name. While it has several well-known actors starring in it, that didn’t help the film’s quality in my opinion. In fact, I would advise skipping the film altogether. Besides the acting being flat or actors speaking it fake accents, the film’s brevity causes it to leave out points that would have added to the black comedy, and, finally, it failed to introduce a few side characters (so the viewer must assume their connection).
I’m a fan of noir and hardboiled vintage books. However, this book was a delightful find for me – a new author! Never heard of Charles Willeford but this man (according to his Wiki page) lived a varied and colorful life, and it shows in his writing. I finished this book in just over a day’s time because of the breezy writing and the fast-paced plot. I will definitely be following it up with the next in the series New Hope for the Dead .
February 18, 2025
4,5*
My first Willeford and certainly won't be my last Filled with memorable characters, some of which have ridiculous names, dealing with crime in South Florida. Really compelling and well-written. Its difficult to say much more without giving too much away.
My first Willeford and certainly won't be my last Filled with memorable characters, some of which have ridiculous names, dealing with crime in South Florida. Really compelling and well-written. Its difficult to say much more without giving too much away.
November 3, 2013
Charles Willeford's Hoke Moseley series starts off with a bang, it's a strange and twisted and outrageously funny at times bang too. His protagonist is a strange beast of a detective with all kinds of odd quirks and is a supporting character to the newly released criminal who spends the entire novel compulsively lying and cheating and making some of the craziest decisions you might expect to find in an Elmore Leonard criminal farce.
Willeford packs out the cast with some wonderfully drawn characters who feel completely authentic to the time and place (whether they are or not I will obviously never know having not lived in Miami in the early 80s) and despite the existential nature of the two leads the supporting cast are used to great comic effect. My personal favourite being the jaded college tutor who abuses his pathetic students to their face and readily admits to preparing for his lectures in a nearby bar.
With Miami Blues I have discovered has a unique voice in the noir field, different even to Willeford's earlier pulp novels, from the first page he had me grinning and despite some lag in pacing towards the middle this is clearly the work of an author with a lifetime of experience under his belt.
Willeford packs out the cast with some wonderfully drawn characters who feel completely authentic to the time and place (whether they are or not I will obviously never know having not lived in Miami in the early 80s) and despite the existential nature of the two leads the supporting cast are used to great comic effect. My personal favourite being the jaded college tutor who abuses his pathetic students to their face and readily admits to preparing for his lectures in a nearby bar.
With Miami Blues I have discovered has a unique voice in the noir field, different even to Willeford's earlier pulp novels, from the first page he had me grinning and despite some lag in pacing towards the middle this is clearly the work of an author with a lifetime of experience under his belt.
August 17, 2012
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?"
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?"
December 7, 2020
I lived in Miami at the time that Miami Blues was first published, and I love the references to the Miami of the 1980s: the beloved late columnist John Keasler; South Beach before it became an exorbitant destination for the pretty people and the plutocrats, when it was still a shopworn, cheap place for retired Jews from the Northeast and dubious Mariel refugees; Kendall still nestled next to tomato farms, and the Omni Mall still existed so that I could get highlights and a haircut at the salon.
The novel, the debut in a noir series that features divorced, sad-sack Detective Sergeant Hoke Moseley, does evoke a lot of nostalgia in me. It was a time when I was a girl reporter, footloose and fancy free in one of the nation’s most cosmopolitan and exciting cities. But even without that frisson, I would still have really enjoyed this novel. Author Charles Willeford, who died in 1988, knew how to plot a suspenseful page-turner. (That’s the same year I left Miami.) Willeford portrays the Magic City’s sinners (no saints here) sympathetically yet realistically; he doesn’t shy away from the cocaine cowboys, the runaways, the hookers, the soulless grifters or the racism and misogyny of the era. Still, I enjoyed the novel enough to want more.
In the interest of full disclosure, I briefly worked with Willeford’s third wife (now widow) at the late, lamented Miami News while he was writing this. It was a while before someone mentioned that her husband was a “famous mystery writer,” but I’d never heard of him and didn’t read any of his work until now, nearly 40 years later. Betsy Willeford and I weren’t really friends, and I don’t think it has affected this review, but you can be the judge.
The novel, the debut in a noir series that features divorced, sad-sack Detective Sergeant Hoke Moseley, does evoke a lot of nostalgia in me. It was a time when I was a girl reporter, footloose and fancy free in one of the nation’s most cosmopolitan and exciting cities. But even without that frisson, I would still have really enjoyed this novel. Author Charles Willeford, who died in 1988, knew how to plot a suspenseful page-turner. (That’s the same year I left Miami.) Willeford portrays the Magic City’s sinners (no saints here) sympathetically yet realistically; he doesn’t shy away from the cocaine cowboys, the runaways, the hookers, the soulless grifters or the racism and misogyny of the era. Still, I enjoyed the novel enough to want more.
In the interest of full disclosure, I briefly worked with Willeford’s third wife (now widow) at the late, lamented Miami News while he was writing this. It was a while before someone mentioned that her husband was a “famous mystery writer,” but I’d never heard of him and didn’t read any of his work until now, nearly 40 years later. Betsy Willeford and I weren’t really friends, and I don’t think it has affected this review, but you can be the judge.
October 23, 2022
I don't think 64-year-old Willeford liked the 1980s:
Richard Simmons, Magnum P.I., grape slurpees, Ms. magazine, 1-Potato-2 at the mall food court, Archie Bunker's Place, NOW accounts, Donahue, Hare KrishnasIt was a shitty decade and Freddy Frenger was a hero of his time. Willeford was an accomplished psychopathologist and Freddy is his nastiest psychopath.
December 14, 2023
charles willeford has to be the hungriest writer ever... every single page is chock full of descriptions of peoples' meals...
December 31, 2021
La dentiera di Hoke Moseley che vola giù dalla finestra o che riposa nel suo bel bicchiere rimarrà per sempre nei miei pensieri :).
Ho davvero apprezzato questo romanzo atipico che del giallo o del crime canonico ha ben poco, ma che comunque riesce a insinuare nel lettore la curiosità di sapere come andrà a finire. La storia ha una trama strampalata che Willeford riesce a tenere in piedi con mano sapiente, avvolgendola di humour caustico e sottile. Dalla sua penna personaggi che potrebbero risultare 'di cartone' (il detective sfigato e depresso, lo psicopatico con ambizioni di redenzione, la puttana ingenua che ama cucinare) escono invece vivificati, come illuminati da una nuova luce che ce li rende molto umani anche quando compiono atroci nefandezze.
L'ambientazione è resa molto bene, l'atmosfera intrisa di violenza delle strade di Miami la senti addosso. Insomma, mi è piaciuto e credo che leggerò altro di questo autore.
Ho davvero apprezzato questo romanzo atipico che del giallo o del crime canonico ha ben poco, ma che comunque riesce a insinuare nel lettore la curiosità di sapere come andrà a finire. La storia ha una trama strampalata che Willeford riesce a tenere in piedi con mano sapiente, avvolgendola di humour caustico e sottile. Dalla sua penna personaggi che potrebbero risultare 'di cartone' (il detective sfigato e depresso, lo psicopatico con ambizioni di redenzione, la puttana ingenua che ama cucinare) escono invece vivificati, come illuminati da una nuova luce che ce li rende molto umani anche quando compiono atroci nefandezze.
L'ambientazione è resa molto bene, l'atmosfera intrisa di violenza delle strade di Miami la senti addosso. Insomma, mi è piaciuto e credo che leggerò altro di questo autore.
May 15, 2023
08/2015
I liked this enough that I might read the sequels. Though I've developed an aversion to series the longer I've lived. I thought it interesting, in the introduction, Elmore Leonard mentions how Willeford said he'd written against genre until he was old. That explains why, of the four of his I've read from the 50s and early 60s, only Wild Wives seemed like noir.
I liked this enough that I might read the sequels. Though I've developed an aversion to series the longer I've lived. I thought it interesting, in the introduction, Elmore Leonard mentions how Willeford said he'd written against genre until he was old. That explains why, of the four of his I've read from the 50s and early 60s, only Wild Wives seemed like noir.
September 20, 2020
Un libro interesante, es novela negra sin ser la típica novela negra.
No sé muy bien que decir al respecto, me ha gustado y le pongo un 3,5/5 que redondeo a 3/5. Tiene un estilo propio y peculiar, tanto la historia como la escritura.
Para decidir si quieres leerla o no, en vez de únicamente leer el resumen del libro, te recomiendo que leas su prólogo. En unas pocas páginas te pone en antecedentes del autor y de la historia, más que suficiente para decidir si continúas o no.
No sé muy bien que decir al respecto, me ha gustado y le pongo un 3,5/5 que redondeo a 3/5. Tiene un estilo propio y peculiar, tanto la historia como la escritura.
Para decidir si quieres leerla o no, en vez de únicamente leer el resumen del libro, te recomiendo que leas su prólogo. En unas pocas páginas te pone en antecedentes del autor y de la historia, más que suficiente para decidir si continúas o no.
August 27, 2013
After landing in Miami, Freddy Frenger Jr. (or Junior as he prefers to be called) steals three wallets and begins to plan his new life. While leaving the airport he snatches a suitcase and leaves a corpse of a Hare Krishna behind. Detective Hoke Moseley is on the case; chasing Junior and his new hooker girlfriend through luxury hotels and the suburban streets of Miami.
If this sounds really familiar then you’ve probably seen the 1990 movie of the same name starring Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Jason Leigh. While there are some major differences to the two, the majority of the book is exactly the same. I’m a little disappointed when I found out this was the first in the Hoke Moseley series, because I always thought of the detective as a supporting role. In the movie Junior steals Moseley’s badge and starts pretending to be a cop to con people; this was the best part of the movie. Sadly in the book there isn’t much of that going on.
Charlies Williford is an author of fiction, poetry, an autobiography, and literary criticism but he is best known for his hard-boiled writing. I think it is weird that he was a poet and literary critic as well as pulp writer, but then again I really shouldn’t be. It’s just an interesting fact about the author. When you think 1980’s hard-boiled novels, Miami Blues is probably going to be one of the top nominations on that list. Charlies Williford was such a prolific writer, with over forty novels published, it is kind of sad that he is best known for the Hoke Moseley series that he wrote very late in his life. I wonder what some of his other books were like, there seems to be a whole lot of hard-boiled novels in the 1950’s and 1960’s that look interesting.
This book is an example of the noir sub-genre Florida glare which is basically a crime novel set in Florida where the heat and the culture play a role in the story as well. Noir is typically associated to LA and there have been some writers out there that wanted to depict Florida as the perfect location for crime stories as well. Some examples of this include the Travis McGee (by John D. MacDonald), Jack Ryan (by Elmore Leonard), and Dexter Morgan (by Jeff Lindsay) series and I’m sure many more. It is an interesting concept though do we really need another genre? I like how the heat of Florida plays a part in the book and the environment is almost like a supporting character.
This was a quick read and one of the rare cases where I think I prefer the movie over the book. I wonder if there are any more noir novels where a character pretends to be a cop in order to con people; I’m sure there are plenty out there, I like the concept and would like to read more of them. I think I’ll have to try another Charlies Williford, maybe something earlier. Does anyone want to recommend me a good Charlies Williford novel?
This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/...
If this sounds really familiar then you’ve probably seen the 1990 movie of the same name starring Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Jason Leigh. While there are some major differences to the two, the majority of the book is exactly the same. I’m a little disappointed when I found out this was the first in the Hoke Moseley series, because I always thought of the detective as a supporting role. In the movie Junior steals Moseley’s badge and starts pretending to be a cop to con people; this was the best part of the movie. Sadly in the book there isn’t much of that going on.
Charlies Williford is an author of fiction, poetry, an autobiography, and literary criticism but he is best known for his hard-boiled writing. I think it is weird that he was a poet and literary critic as well as pulp writer, but then again I really shouldn’t be. It’s just an interesting fact about the author. When you think 1980’s hard-boiled novels, Miami Blues is probably going to be one of the top nominations on that list. Charlies Williford was such a prolific writer, with over forty novels published, it is kind of sad that he is best known for the Hoke Moseley series that he wrote very late in his life. I wonder what some of his other books were like, there seems to be a whole lot of hard-boiled novels in the 1950’s and 1960’s that look interesting.
This book is an example of the noir sub-genre Florida glare which is basically a crime novel set in Florida where the heat and the culture play a role in the story as well. Noir is typically associated to LA and there have been some writers out there that wanted to depict Florida as the perfect location for crime stories as well. Some examples of this include the Travis McGee (by John D. MacDonald), Jack Ryan (by Elmore Leonard), and Dexter Morgan (by Jeff Lindsay) series and I’m sure many more. It is an interesting concept though do we really need another genre? I like how the heat of Florida plays a part in the book and the environment is almost like a supporting character.
This was a quick read and one of the rare cases where I think I prefer the movie over the book. I wonder if there are any more noir novels where a character pretends to be a cop in order to con people; I’m sure there are plenty out there, I like the concept and would like to read more of them. I think I’ll have to try another Charlies Williford, maybe something earlier. Does anyone want to recommend me a good Charlies Williford novel?
This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/...
June 16, 2008
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.
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.
August 29, 2025
They don't write them like this anymore, which is probably just as well. As far as crime novels go, this is great. I almost admired 'Junior' Frenger for being such a horrible, psychotic lunatic. It's gritty, very funny and a bit dated, but a fabulous page-turner. Charles Willeford was a remarkable character - ex professional soldier, professor of English, professional boxer, actor, painter and author. Miami is the perfect backdrop for his Hoke Moseley series. Highly entertaining.
June 17, 2021
"Even when people talk about the weather, fair doesn’t mean anything."
- Charles Willeford, Miami Blues
The first of Willeford's Hoke Moseley mystery novels, Miami Blues introduced the world (obviously not the world, I don't think Willeford was that widely read until late in his life) to one of the best characters in modern crime fiction. Hoke Moseley is depressed, with dentures, a dad bod, in debt, living in a crappy dive down by the Beach. But he's a fantastic detective.
In this novel, Hoke's path crosses with Frederick J. Frenger Jr. a psychopath who has recently relocated to Miami. The novel is surprising in parts, violent in many parts, and like John D. MacDonald's John McGee novels, addictively readable. I read somewhere that Willeford has been a big inspiration for Quentin Tarantino, which makes a lot of sense.
- Charles Willeford, Miami Blues
The first of Willeford's Hoke Moseley mystery novels, Miami Blues introduced the world (obviously not the world, I don't think Willeford was that widely read until late in his life) to one of the best characters in modern crime fiction. Hoke Moseley is depressed, with dentures, a dad bod, in debt, living in a crappy dive down by the Beach. But he's a fantastic detective.
In this novel, Hoke's path crosses with Frederick J. Frenger Jr. a psychopath who has recently relocated to Miami. The novel is surprising in parts, violent in many parts, and like John D. MacDonald's John McGee novels, addictively readable. I read somewhere that Willeford has been a big inspiration for Quentin Tarantino, which makes a lot of sense.
September 18, 2009
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 ride.
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 ride.
December 18, 2015
Well written & an entertaining read. Just not AMAZING!
I'll likely read the other 4 books in this series, but I'm in no hurry to do so.
Not being a fan of series, i can't help but think this book would have been better if the effort put into writing all 5 books in the series, were condensed into one outstanding novel rather than diluted into 5.
I'll likely read the other 4 books in this series, but I'm in no hurry to do so.
Not being a fan of series, i can't help but think this book would have been better if the effort put into writing all 5 books in the series, were condensed into one outstanding novel rather than diluted into 5.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 445 reviews