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nickdleblanc's review against another edition
5.0
CW doesn't strictly write crime fiction. It's all disgusting descriptions of food and people, repressed feelings of sexuality and desire, and digressions into the heavy personality of Miami and backwoods Florida. This is a fully formed world that is somehow realer than real. I was genuinely disturbed by the trailer park scene and the incident at the farm took me completely by surprise. His prose is great, spare but evocative. The characters are complex and full of warts. I really can't say enough good about this series. This book in particular would make for a wonderful film adaptation. This is the type of series that begs for future re-reads.
jimmypat's review against another edition
5.0
A melancholy but surprisingly great ending to one of the best series I have ever read. Hoke Moseley is a character for the ages and I'm saddened that Willeford died before he could write more. I can't recommend this series any higher- do yourself a favor and read these books!
bundy23's review against another edition
5.0
Hoke Moseley is no Philip Marlowe. Fat, balding, dentures that don't fit... but I'm going to miss him now that I've finished the series.
perkisize's review against another edition
dark
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
tommyro's review against another edition
4.0
The last of Willeford's fantastic Hoke Mosely series. Great story telling. This was my second read of the quartet and they hold up brilliantly.
jakewritesbooks's review against another edition
3.0
And so I have come to the end of Charles Willeford’s Hank Moseley series which, while at times was quite entertaining, mostly disappointed me after its great entry (Miami Blues).
As I said in my reviews of the last two books, I expected more cat-and-mouse affairs with Moseley and criminals. I didn’t think this would be a series about a sad sack cop’s private life with some police bureaucracy and a little detective work thrown in. That’s mostly what these books are.
And while I’ve critiqued Moseley’s racism in past reviews, it’s time to stop dancing around it: the dude is a straight up racist. Yeah maybe he’s not bad by the low bar of police department standards but he’s a racist. He’ll have all the respect in the world for non-white individuals but he’s very big into denigrating entire ethnic groups based on stereotypes. Of course, he’s examining these groups through a cop’s eye and the job of the police is to find crime among them, so that’s what he does. It’s a myopic way of viewing the world and, while perhaps honest with the reader as to the sympathies a white detective in 80s Miami would have, it still made me really hate Hoke.
And again, the cases themselves, while interestingly resolved, don’t provide any sort of real suspense. There’s a weird diversion that takes up the second third of the book and, while it has an interesting tie in to the end, kind of left me frustrated. Also, there’s family drama going on with Hoke, Ellita and the girls that sucks too much story line, especially in a somewhat implausible way.
I like Charles Willeford as a writer. I wanted to like the series more. I can’t say I regret reading it…but I wish a different, better version of it existed.
As I said in my reviews of the last two books, I expected more cat-and-mouse affairs with Moseley and criminals. I didn’t think this would be a series about a sad sack cop’s private life with some police bureaucracy and a little detective work thrown in. That’s mostly what these books are.
And while I’ve critiqued Moseley’s racism in past reviews, it’s time to stop dancing around it: the dude is a straight up racist. Yeah maybe he’s not bad by the low bar of police department standards but he’s a racist. He’ll have all the respect in the world for non-white individuals but he’s very big into denigrating entire ethnic groups based on stereotypes. Of course, he’s examining these groups through a cop’s eye and the job of the police is to find crime among them, so that’s what he does. It’s a myopic way of viewing the world and, while perhaps honest with the reader as to the sympathies a white detective in 80s Miami would have, it still made me really hate Hoke.
And again, the cases themselves, while interestingly resolved, don’t provide any sort of real suspense. There’s a weird diversion that takes up the second third of the book and, while it has an interesting tie in to the end, kind of left me frustrated. Also, there’s family drama going on with Hoke, Ellita and the girls that sucks too much story line, especially in a somewhat implausible way.
I like Charles Willeford as a writer. I wanted to like the series more. I can’t say I regret reading it…but I wish a different, better version of it existed.
nateisdreaming's review against another edition
4.0
Wow. Might become my favorite book in this series (aside from the brilliant first one), a hugely under-looked series of crime novels set in Florida. I always tell friends that reading Willeford is something like if Werner Herzog wrote noir fiction. Both amoral and almost humanistic, or at least psychologically astute. His books are also strange, surreal, often funny, always fascinating. Anyway, this is the fourth and last in his series of Hoke Moseley novels. They are all great and should be read in order. Plus, since no one knows of him, you can often find used first edition books of his for under five bucks. What are you waiting for?
wampusreynolds's review against another edition
4.0
Hoke Moseley, one of my favorite crime novel characters, comes back again and bashes up against a police department, daughters, criminals sworn to revenge, rednecks, rapists and a Florida that is changing faster than he. He is the classic hero of pulps with his own morality that makes sense while you're reading, but five minutes back in the real world you realize that he should be locked up.
The story moves along (with a frightening set piece in the middle that stands out) and is set up for another sequel which unfortunately we'll never see.
The story moves along (with a frightening set piece in the middle that stands out) and is set up for another sequel which unfortunately we'll never see.
efbeckett's review against another edition
4.0
Love these meandering crime/domestic novels, very bummed that there aren't any more.
Here's my problem, unrelated to the actual book, maybe someone else can help me: I have the Vintage/Black Lizard edition. The final chapter is two pages long and the text runs all the way to the bottom of the second page, bam - end of book. The last sentence is complete, and I can see how it works fine as the end of the book, but it also feels like something's missing (I know, a fifth book). The last sentence ends "... because you can't!" Is there more to it and I'm missing some pages, or is that it? Goodreads says this edition is 256 pages, what I have is 245. I've seen incorrect page counts in Goodreads, so this may mean nothing (some Goodreads page counts seem to add the unnumbered pages at the beginning to the total count which, as someone who catalogues library books for a living, makes me insane).
Here's my problem, unrelated to the actual book, maybe someone else can help me: I have the Vintage/Black Lizard edition. The final chapter is two pages long and the text runs all the way to the bottom of the second page, bam - end of book. The last sentence is complete, and I can see how it works fine as the end of the book, but it also feels like something's missing (I know, a fifth book). The last sentence ends "... because you can't!" Is there more to it and I'm missing some pages, or is that it? Goodreads says this edition is 256 pages, what I have is 245. I've seen incorrect page counts in Goodreads, so this may mean nothing (some Goodreads page counts seem to add the unnumbered pages at the beginning to the total count which, as someone who catalogues library books for a living, makes me insane).