Made in Miami aka Lust is a Woman (Charles Willeford, 1958)

Boy meets girl. And falls for her big time. Which is unfortunate since she's already in love with herself. But this won't be Ralph's biggest problem. The thing is that Maria is not the most intelligent girl on this planet, and she doesn't exactly think twice before deciding to advance her current career as an NYC secretary into a more lucrative one as a Miami prostitute. Drama ensues.

Loads of drama, way too much. I have little against the genre and have, in fact, really enjoyed Willeford's early non-crime novels, Pick-Up and High Priest of California. Both are excellent character studies, written in his distinguished style. However, this one is remarkably plain. Not good, not bad, just... well, it's just ordinary. It never really takes off and grabs you. Maria and McKay are characterised decently, but our hero is pretty dull and (probably intentionally) pathetic. The third-person narration alternates between Ralph and Maria, slowing the pace and diminishing the suspense. Dialogues are corny, and let's not forget that the villain's henchman is called Tarzan. I kid you fucking not!

I don't know. I must have missed something or misinterpreted the whole thing. Was this novel Willeford's way of saying fuck you to America's 50s conformity, consumerism, materialism, conservatism... Or is it about a young artist going (literally) crazy in this surreal environment? I couldn't say, but I did remind myself again to finally read his biography, where I'll probably find the answer.

2.5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Art student Ralph, working in Miami over the summer as a bellboy.

Location: 
Miami

Body count:  
"These aren't dead people," Ralph said quietly. "They can't be. This one is Gila monster, that one is an alligator. The brown one inside the door is a toad, and she - she's a black widow spider."

Dames: 

Maria stepped in close to the full-length mirror reflection, pressed her body against it, and kissed her bright red mouth against itself.
"I love you," she said. She really meant it.

"Will you be all right?"
"Sure. And thanks loads, Helen."
"I'll see you out in the arena in a few minutes. Just let that blank mind of yours stay blank."
"That's easy for me - I'm pretty dumb anyway."
"That goes for all of us, sweetie."

Blackouts: 
Poor Ralph tries to storm into the pimp's house to rescue his darling, but he gets knocked off right away:

A searing white light flashed inside his head, his knees buckled and, as he fell forward, the fingernails of his lifeless hand made a faint scratching noise as they raked the wooden door. 

Title: 
I'm not sure why the publisher decided to change the original title, since this story could have happened in any big city. Lust is a Woman sounds way cooler and is also more accurate.

Edition: 
Point Blank Express, an imprint of Wildside Press, 2008. 

Cover: 
Looks a bit plain and too much like some psychedelic 60s novel cover or movie poster. By Olva design.

Notable cover blurbs: 
The usual one by Elmore Leonard (and one that got me hooked on Willeford btw): "No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford".

I agree, but unfortunately, this one hardly classifies as a crime novel...
 
Cool lines:  

"A young man can't be too careful, you know. Lot of things going around Florida these days. Asian Flu, sputniks, wheels, nuts and bolts, athlete's foot, old retired couples without driver's licenses..." [The Coolest!]

Wild Wives (Charles Willeford, 1956)

PI Jake Blake is sucked/suckered into two love triangles in a single day. The first one is kind of amusing (at first), but the second one is violent, sexy and ultimately deadly. Man is killed, and Jake and his femme fatale accomplice must hit the road to Mexico to escape the electric chair. Passion cools down pretty soon and fades out completely when money (or lack of it) gets involved. A tragic conclusion is inevitable, and justice will be served in the end - in the "Postman Always Rings Twice" manner.

Not sure where to start. I love Hoke Moseley stuff, but I wasn't sure what to expect from this one, written 30 years prior. Was Willeford's quirky style already distinct and memorable so early on, or was this going to be just another detective novel?

Such concerns were dispelled right away. There is a classical opening scene with a detective sitting bored and jobless in his crummy office when a femme fatale walks in with a gun. But here, our damsel in distress is a teenager with a water pistol! Hehe, nice touch. The whole thing quickly takes a more serious tone, but as the story progresses, it soon becomes clear (and cool too!) that this will not be a detective story. It's instead a "crime of passion" kind of thing in which the main protagonist just happens to be a private detective. In other words, Willeford is playing with the genre, and he's using one classical crime/mystery template to tell a story of another one.

It goes even further because there's also a little twist in the "passionate lovers condemned to destroy each other" part. The thing is that neither of them is quite likeable, so we don't really root for anyone in particular. Florence at first appears to be a cool, horny and calculative bitch (always plus in my book), but then we learn that she's just a messed-up girl who recently came out of a mental institution. And without going into details, let's simply say that Jake is pretty much an asshole.

The most enjoyable part was that I didn't have time to think about such matters, given the furious pace. Towards the end, it reaches almost comical intensity. The Las Vegas wedding scene with a gin-soaked witness sleeping in the chapel (one page) and the one in which Jake wins $1400 on a dice game (two paragraphs) are both unforgettable. It says "A Novel" on the cover, but with less than 100 pages, I think it qualifies more as a novella. Either way, it's impossible to put it down once you start reading it.

Could go on and on about this little masterpiece, but instead, let me just finish this post by saying: "Read It!". Can't think of many better ways to spend a couple of hours of your life.

5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Jake Blake, PI

Location:
San Francisco, Las Vegas

Body count: 

3

Dames: 
At the beginning:

Florence had something that I'd never run into before in my entire life. During the many years I had spent in the army, I'd met women in Paris, Berlin, Manila and Tokyo, but never, never one like her before. The mundane domestic variety I'd clashed with in the States I didn't count at all--I decided to stick it out for awhile to see what would happen. 

And a bit later:

I hadn't realized it before, but Florence Weintraub was just about as dumb as a woman could get. When it came to any thinking, I realized, I would have to do it all.

Blackouts:
He drew his fist back. I saw it coming but I didn't feel it. It was a sure-shot solar plexus blow and the film turned a dirty black, interspersed with shooting stars...
 

Title: 
It's, of course, about Florence, but I'm not sure why the plural is used. She has mental problems, but it's never explicitly specified that she is schizophrenic.

Edition:  
First Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, March 2006

Cover: 
See 'Dames' and 'Title' sections

Notable cover blurbs:  
This one from Elmore Leonard is well known, but let's just put it here for the record (and play a little with a typeface): 
"No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford."
 

Cool lines:  
"Now, try this: I call it a Desert Wind. Nine-tenths gin, one-tenth vermouth. No olive. No onion. Nothing, just a toothpick."
I sipped the Desert Wind. "It's fair," I said, smiling, "only next time, skip the toothpick. The wood absorbs too much of the gin." [The Coolest!]

"Go to your room!" He told her fiercely.
"Fuck yourself," she remarked quietly and wandered over to the fireplace.
"I wanted to take a look at you, Blake," he said, ignoring Florence's suggestion.

Sideswipe (Charles Willeford, 1987)

Another highly enjoyable ride full of thrills and quirky characters with my new best friend, Hoke Moseley. It continues from where New Hope for the Dead has finished. Hoke now lives together with pregnant Ellita Sanchez and his two teenage daughters, but for some reason, he has just had enough. It could be the pile of cold cases at work or a simple case of midlife crisis. Willeford thankfully doesn't even bother to tell us what exactly has made him so fed up with the world. One morning, he suffers a nervous breakdown (I think), so he decides that he needs to simplify his life. He moves to a small tourist resort and starts managing his father's small motel.

But there will be crime, of course. Parallel to Hoke's story, we follow the formation of a very peculiar gang, weird even by Willeford's high standard of craziness. Its leader, Troy, with reptilian looks, is a self-proclaimed criminal psychopath who, in prison, befriends an elderly Stanley. Also a psychopath but not yet a criminal one, as for the time being, he seems to be happy enough with occasional dog poisoning. These two men form some kind of weird father/son homosexual relationship and are joined by Troy's hot ex-stripper girlfriend with a disfigured face, who is a (failed) abstract artist.

Sideswipe feels like a combination of the first two Hoke's novels. The structure of mixing his personal story and the gang's job preparation is almost identical to the one from Miami Blues, and little episodes concerning his daughters keep the tone similar to New Hope for the Dead. There's once again a mandatory minor case that Hoke solves along the way. There's a robbery in the local hotel, and he helps the police force to find the thief.

Troy's gang is so colourful and such an insane bunch of characters that it almost threatens to steal the entire show from Hoke at times. Sometimes I could almost sense that Willeford was aware of this and would react by giving his hero an additional storyline to prove that he still was the main man. One of the novel's highlights is the episode where Hoke promptly ships his daughter to her mother on the first plane to L.A., immediately after he learns that she has some weird medical problems (bulimia) and doesn't have a clue how to deal with the situation. And she's accompanied by some lowlife teenager whom Hoke has just met 10 hours before. She informs his wife that she's a trained nurse, and to make sure they would stay together, he even handcuffs both girls together!

Don't like to repeat myself, but this is truly great stuff. Simple and effective. Funny but also ugly at times. Full of black humour but also compassion.

And it could also come with a message. Is life even possible to be simplified?

5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Sergeant Hoke Moseley

Location:
Miami and Ocean Mall, where Hoke is recuperating and trying to simplify his life.

Body count: 6 (plus one baby in the past)

Dames: 
Possibly Ellita Sanchez and questionably disfigured Dale Forrest, once Miss Bottlecapping Industry of Daytona Beach. And Hoke's daughter Sue Ellen is on the right track to become a real babe - she had grown a green mohawk and went to see Dead Kennedys gig (ticket costing 35$!!?).

Blackouts: 
None, unless we count that weird nervous breakdown.

Title: 
Another intriguing one that escapes my understanding. I checked a few online dictionaries, but couldn't find anything relevant. Any suggestions?

Cover:
Nice and in the same style as the rest of Penguin reprints of Hoke Moseley novels. Maybe a little too similar to Miami Blues.

Cool lines:  
As mentioned, Hoke is still our main man, but this time I will use cool lines to let Troy explain his complex personality:

I'm a professional criminal, what the shrinks call a criminal psychopath.[The Coolest!]

What it means is, I know the difference between right and wrong and all that, but I don't give a shit. That's the official version. Most men in prison are psychopaths, like me, and there are times - when we don't give a shit - when we act impulsively.

- I don't have time to go into all of the ramifications of my personality, it's too complex. I've been tested again and again, and it always comes out the same. Psychopath. And because I'm a criminal, I'm also a criminal psychopath. You follow me?

- Yeah, I think so. But if you aren't crazy, what are you?

- It's what I told you already. I know the difference between good and bad, but it makes no difference to me. If I see the right thing to do and want to do it, I do it, and if I see the wrong thing and want to do it, I do that too.
- You mean you can't help yourself then?
- Certainly I can. I'll put it another way. I can help myself, but I don't give a damn.
- And because you don't give a damn, you're a criminal psychopath, is that it?
- You've got it.
- But why don't you give a damn?
- Because I'm a criminal psychopath. Maybe, when they give you some tests, you might could be one, too.

Smoking comforts ordinary men, but I'm not an ordinary man. There aren't many like me left. And it's good thing for the world that there isn't. There'll always be a few of us in America, in every generation, because only a great country like America can produce men like me.I'm not a thinker, I'm a doer. I'm considered inarticulate, so I talk a lot to cover it up. [The Coolest!]

New Hope for the Dead (Charles Willeford, 1985)

I simply loved Miami Blues and was a bit wary about checking out Hoke's next novel. It happens so often that I get disappointed with some writer's debut (or in this case, his fictional character) follow-up, expecting too much. But I'm glad to report that my fears were totally redundant in this case - New Hope for the Dead is simply brilliant and possibly even better than its predecessor. Although 'better' is probably not the word I should be using, let me instead categorise it as even more wackier.

Willeford once again focuses on his weird protagonist even more than on the crime(s) he's supposed to be investigating. Sure, our cool sergeant is busy working on a small-time junkie/dealer's OD and on a pile of 'cold' cases, but - in all fairness - he spends more time trying to get laid and finding a house for himself and his two daughters. Parallel to his story, we follow a similarly problematic one of his partner, Elita Sanchez, who gets thrown out of her parents' house due to her pregnancy.  But both problems will get resolved at the same time in a totally unexpected and hilarious ending. Justice will be served, in Hoke's way at least!

It's all about our main man's colourful character. He's a living definition of stoicism, but at the same time also an unusually warm, sympathetic and honest person. His methods are not exactly by-the-book, but still, he manages to get the job done, and at the same time also knows where to draw the line - no way he'll jerk off that fucking dog to get the house-sitting job! Hoke is simply efficient and - as miserable as his situation can get - doesn't complain.

Hoke didn't like himself very much. He never had, now that he thought about it. Still, a man had to take care of his family.

So fucking cool! But nothing new really, because we had known already how cool Hoke was from the first novel. What I'm really going to remember this one by is his relationship with his two teenage daughters. It's basically stripped out of all the usual, trivial emotions and family crap. When they arrive (basically abandoned by their mother who had left with some baseball star) in Miami, they form some kind of weird bond with Hoke (and pregnant Elita), which is based more on survival (mostly earning money) than on affection. But that, of course, is just on the surface; you can somehow feel and enjoy their affections for each other. And even if you don't, Hoke's words of wisdom are hilarious, more than enough to follow his unconventional  parenthood:

"South Beach is now a slum, and it's a high-crime area, so I don't want you girls to leave the hotel by yourselves. If you had a doll, and you left it out overnight on the front porch of the hotel, it would probably be raped when you found it in the morning."

"Better make these two last. If you can't support your habit on the allowance I gave you, you'll just have to stop smoking till I can find you a job somewhere."

"I know you girls are normal, and you'll have normal urges. That's natural. But to relieve your urges, just go into the bathroom, lock the door, and masturbate. But remember this, masturbation is a private matter. Do it alone, and not to each other, and don't ever talk about it."

"AIDS you don't have to worry about. That comes from anal sex. If you avoid anal sex, you won't get AIDS, but the point is, I want you girls to avoid sex altogether."

Simply brilliant stuff, so refreshing and so unique in style as well as in the content. Cannot wait till my nephew is old enough to read it, and looking forward to discussing this masterpiece with him.

5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Sergeant Hoke Moseley

Location: 
Miami, the 80s, when cigarettes cost $1.30 a pack, it made a man think twice before lighting up a cigarette worth six and a half cents.

Body count: 
1 + 3 in cold cases + the unrelated death of an old lady in his hotel

Dames:
Mrs Loretta Hickey

Blackouts: 
None, Hoke's too busy with the house hunting to let himself be knocked off

Title: 
Fuck me if I get it. Somehow, it doesn't seem plausible that the house they manage to get at the end would be their "new hope". But it sounds cool anyways. 

Cover:
Nice design, but nothing special really. I wonder if the artist had in mind Elita Sanchez or Loretta Hickey when he was drawing that good-looking lady.

Cool lines:  
"I'm really sorry for her condition."
"Don't be. The world would look better if everybody drank a glassful of Wild Turkey in the morning."
 
"Jerry was my ex-husband's ex-wife's son by her first husband. "
"You may not believe me, but I can follow you. I run into a lot more complicated families than yours in Miami."

[The best one!]
"Jesus! You told the recording Jerry was dead? I could've done that myself. The reason I asked you to call call him in the first place was I thought you could do it gently."
"There isn't any gentle way to tell someone that a member of his family's dead. The direct method's as good as any. Besides, if Mr. Hickey was sensitive, he wouldn't have a recording answer his telephone for him."

"Christ, Bill, there must be ten thousand men named Leroy in Liberty City"
"It could've been worse. He could've said 'Tyrone'"

He showed the clerk his shield and asked if he could use a telephone. Since the pay phone rates had jumped from a dime to a quarter a few years back, Hoke, as a matter of principle, had never paid to use a phone again.

Miami Blues (Charles Willeford, 1984)

Needs to be said that the start was not the most promising. It begins with this psychopathic asshole killing a Hare Krishna guy by breaking his finger. I kid you not, this sissy actually dies from the shock of getting his fucking finger broken!? So we have one less airport beggar in this world and one not very convincing prologue to a crime novel. Which right away becomes even less plausible because this same psycho asshole hires a hooker who turns out to be a deceased guy's sister. Later on (pg. 42 to be precise), there's information that Miami has 1.5 million residents, so you can calculate for yourself the odds of this actually happening.

It sounds like a mess, but it's anything but that. Quite opposite, actually - we are dealing with a masterfully constructed thriller. When homicide detective Hoke Moseley starts to investigate this unusual murder, he himself becomes the chased party in a cat-and-mouse game. So, this is not a classical whodunit, but much more a WTF is going to happen next. Taut and suspenseful story, told in 3rd person in alternating chapters from the perspectives of (mostly) our two main protagonists.

But still, as great as the story and narrative, this novel is foremost character-driven. Central one is, of course, Hoke, a rather washed-up detective. And I truly can't remember the last time I've come across such a likeable protagonist. He's just the coolest! 42 years of age, divorced with two little daughters. And he's not moaning and bitching about missing them or (usual) shit like that. His only problem with this is that every other one of his paychecks goes to them, leaving him more or less broke and forcing him to live in a cheap hotel where he's performing duties of a house dick. There's a delightful episode when he unexpectedly gets some (pretty obviously) dirty money, and he doesn't hesitate one second about it - he goes straight to a local bar to settle his 100$ tab. "Fuck where it came from. I need it, and I can use it." Great stuff, no moral dilemmas there! He's also not the best detective in the world, and he's actually somehow scared of his unpredictable and violent opponent. But he can be tough as his new partner has experienced. The part where he explains to unfortunate Ellita Sanchez her position in their relationship (hierarchy) is simply hilarious, I've reread it three times!

I could go on and on about our main man Hoke (didn't even mention his false teeth!), but I mustn't neglect others. Susan is great as a simple, greedy and stupid whore living in a "platonic-marriage" with Junior. And he himself is some piece of work, indeed. It's astonishing how Willeford manages to picture him as a total sociopath in the first two pages of the book. Later scenes, such as buying Frisbees and tossing them to himself, are brilliant, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were taken from a psychological study. And it's equally amazing that somehow this really mean motherfucker is sympathetic throughout the book.

Writing is in a league of its own. Hot and sweaty Miami makes a great background and adds something special to the atmosphere. And while one would easily expect that this kind of stuff would be full of some macho language and/or wisecracking, it's surprisingly tight and almost dull. And as such, it perfectly aligned with Hoke's character, his mechanical and emotionless police work, and his personal problems. And speaking about police work - the way they crack that family slaughter case is just - once more - brilliant, isn't it?

Authentic, funny, at times brutal and ... simply just really cool. I'm totally hooked on Hoke!

5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Detective Hoke Moseley

Location:
Miami - where "It wasn't enough that Carter had destroyed the city by sending in all the refugees, Reagan was importing ex-cons from California."

Body count: 
4 + another 4 in unrelated massacre + 1 child murder in another unrelated case + 1 at the end. Maybe unrelated, or maybe a prologue to the next book in the series?

Dames: 
Susan Waggoner - "Is she really that dumb, or is it an act of some kind?"

Blackouts: 
Yes, Junior beats the living shit out of him: "The jaw cracked audibly, and blood poured from Hoke's nose and mouth."

Title: 
Pretty fitting. Miami plays a major role in building up a "blues" atmosphere.

Cover:
Nice, colourful illustration of Miami. Author not credited.

Cool lines:  
There was no way that Mendez could be his real name. With that bronze tan, he looked like an Afrika Corps Nazi, and it was definitely a tan, not dark skin.

The mentholated smoke tasted wonderful. A man would be a fool to give up smoking altogether.[The Coolest!]

But any way Hoke looked at it, the quality of life in Miami would be improved immeasurably now that Freddy Frenger was no longer out on the streets...