This is the fourth and, sadly, the last entry in Charles Willeford’s series featuring Miami homicide detective Hoke Moseley. Hoke, to put it mildly, does not remotely resemble the homicide detectives that one usually encounters in crime fiction. Certainly, he’s nothing like Sonny Crockett and the other detectives of the television show, Miami Vice, which was so wildly popular at the same time this series was written.Hoke is middle-aged and overweight; he dresses in leisure suits that be buys on

I was hoping that Charles Willeford might be my post-Parker (I mean Richard Stark's Parker novels, not either of the two mystery authors with the past name Parker, neither of whom I've ever read) author but my first experience with the "Master of Mystery" wasn't very promising. A lot of people seem to like Willeford an awful lot, and Donald Westlake, the name who when he's feeling dark puts on the hat of Richard Stark, praises Willeford as just about a bona fide genius in the genre. This makes m...

The fourth and last book in the Hoke Moseley series, published in 1988; soon after the book was published (see title) Willeford died! Jinx much?! At any rate, it felt like when I read it as if he were not quite done with the series, as some things seemed set up for the future (i.e., what about Ellita, for those who have read it?). This is not my favorite of the four books, maybe third, 3.5, Sideswipe being the best imho. While all four are different, they all feature this sad-sack non-pc schlepp...

Great title---one of the best interextual noir spins on another title ever, in fact. Every time I think of Trollope (or John W. Aldridge, who copped THE WAY WE LIVE NOW from Trol), I think of Willeford, in the same way I can't think of "Stairway to Heaven" without conjuring the B-H Sufers' "Hairway to Steven." The novel itself is deceptively ramshackle. Subplots come and go, conflicts taper off, the prologue featuring the dastardly villain seems to have no relevance ... until, anyway, the hero i...

It's a crying shame that Charles Willeford went and died just as this series of Hoke Moseley novels was getting going. The Way We Die Now is the fourth and final chapter in Moseley's life on the Miami Police force in the 80s, and as usual you're treated to some fine existential musings, some witty commentary on the changing face of America and Moseley solving crimes in a largely straight forward manner.The book opens with a chapter describing two men killing animals and people, setting the scene...

"Miami isn't Cuba. We can do what we please here."- Charles Willeford, The Way We Die NowThe final installment of Willeford's Hoke Moseley mysteries, and probably my favorite. It has all the middle-class Miami challenges: immigrants, a partner and daughters who seem way less plussed by the murderer Hoke put away 10-years-ago than he does, a dumb partner, an ambitious boss, office politics, etc. Hoke is asked to go undercover, his roommate and daughters disappear, his boss even has a surprise for...

This fourth and final Hoke Moseley story is a heck of a lot more gritty and violent than the first, Miami Blues. There are several, unrelated story lines, each suspenseful, potentially volatile, and well developed. In typical fashion, the even keeled anti-hero detective barely manages to navigate some very dicey situations, coming out quite a bit worse for the wear. In fact, he goes through most of the story missing his dentures. The story ends with a twist, a surprise for Hoke that would seemin...

Wow. I have a new definition of "tragedy," now: The fact that Charles Willeford died just as this book was published in 1988, so he was never able to pen another one/Willeford, whom some credit with being the father of the modern Florida crime novel, led a wild life. He won a Purple Heart as a tank commander at the Battle of the Bulge, served in the military off and on for 20 years, studied art, taught creative writing, reviewed mysteries for the Miami Herald, and at various times worked as a fl...

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 end...

Writers and readers are always bitching about the size of our to-be-read (TBR) piles.I’m not sure if it’s related to the fact that there’s more books available, if they’re easier to access electronically or via on-line bookstores like Booktopia, or whether social media means we just need something to talk about, to look busy, so hell, why not talk about how we’ve just added another book to our TBR list.Whatever, the upshot is it’s rare for many of us, well, for me anyway, to find ourselves in a

comes close to rivaling the 1st book of the hokiad... really seems to raise the stakes somehow when he's forced to operate w/o his dentures, don't you think? there's an interesting ambiguity at the core of this one: more than ever you see the kinda viewpoints that remind you this char is a white cop in florida in the 1980s, & yet at a pivotal moment he basically does a mini harper's ferry on a guy who's keeping haitian laborers enslaved in the everglades. (was it in the name of justice, or was h...

I thought this book was better than its three predecessors. It gives me a warm feeling, knowing that Willeford brought this series to a satisfying conclusion before he died. The Immokalee section was terrific, though also awfully violent.

I really, really tried to make this book last since it's the last of the Hoke Moseley books and as you know from my previous reviews, I've developed a little crush thing on the guy, but I couldn't put it down. I'm so sad to be done with it. Feels a little weird writing this review so soon. Body's still warm, etc. By this, the 4th book, I was starting to notice a pattern. And I don't mean that in a bad way. It was a pattern I liked: the first chapter obscurely references what will be the main cri...

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 rea...

Shockingly good. Excellent ending. If true darkness of the human condition can be said to exist down there in the bright Florida sun, this is as close as one can get to capturing it on paper. Strongly recommended. But if you are going to read a Hoke novel, read this one last.

Unfortunately the Hoke Moseley series went out with a whimper instead of a bang. The book felt too much like wrapping up loose ends, as if Willeford knew this would be his last.

It felt like Willeford wrote parts of this book in his sleep. I am not criticizing him. But its just that the two major crime investigations in THE WAY WE DIE NOW seemed to be arbitrarily written. Almost as if Willeford was saying - Hey look, I wanted to write this existential novel about a detective in Florida but then nobody would read it, so I am including a couple of ridiculous and over the top crime investigations so that my book would actually get published. There is actually a short intro...

The Way We Die Now (1988) is the fourth and last of Charles Willeford’s Hoke Moseley crime novels; it was published just before Willeford’s death. Hoke is homicide detective sergeant in Miami homicide with a strange home life: he lives with his two teenage daughters, his former partner Ellita, and Ellita’s infant son by another man. Hoke’s relationship with Ellita is platonic and motivated by cost sharing.Hoke has been assigned to the murder of Dr. Paul Russell in his own driveway. Prior to the

It's almost as much fun reading Willeford reviews as it is reading Willeford. Well, that's a bit of hyperbole, but the reviews are amusing, especially the negative ones. Some people simply don't get it. One reviewer says Willeford spends too much time on minutiae like descriptions of food. All I can say is, these little details are what give this series its "day in the life" quality. If you read back through the other three books in the series, food is a recurring topic. It adds a basic affirmat...

Sergeant Hoke Moseley has some problems. Miami's Homicide Department is short handed on detectives and Hoke's partner in solving cold cases is lackluster economics graduate. Par for the course, Hoke's home life is all over the place as his daughters are living very unique lifestyles and his former partner Ellita and her son Pepe are living in his crowded household. To add to this chaos, an early released murder suspect that Hoke put away 10 years ago has moved in right across the street from his...

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...

Charles Willeford is one of the undiscovered masters of the American mystery. He wrote marvelous books that are far superior to those of much more popular authors. This is no exception and features Hoke Moseley, his Miami homicide detective sergeant. Williford’s world is darkly ironic and the humdrum, normal aspects of life, become part of the tension. Hoke is forced to make a series of accomodations and compromises, some very dark in this book. Hoke has been working on a series of unsolved mur

I'm giving this 4 stars because I liked it more and more as I got into it. It takes a while to adjust to this particular brand of noir...but you do get hooked on Hoke. I never met Charlie Willeford but I knew his third wife when I lived in Miami and she was a very spicy person with a quick wit. I wasn't even meaning to read a Miami book right now but in a Library of America omnibus of crime stories I read one of Willeford's first, and it was so unusual and haunting that I went looking for more.

Charles Willeford is considered 'hard-boiled' which is 'my genre' and I really liked this book more because it's set in Florida. South Florida but Florida nevertheless and I'm drawn to Florida books and writers. Sgt. Hoke Moseley, Miami PD, is THE Man. He's real, in part, because of Willeford's sparse writing. I love this character who had his teeth in the first of the series, lost them, bought some expensive 'chopper' then and lost them and can't afford to buy more on his police salary. A good

I finished the last of Willeford's Hoke Moseley novels with no small measure of regret. Going from Patterson to Willeford is like going from McDonald's (which might not be fair to McDonald's) to mom's home cooking (no Michelin stars but the stuff that makes the heart glow) - the difference between these two authors, both of whom write fiction that primarily 'entertains,' could not be starker. Willeford's prose is clean and evocative; he is brilliant with characterizations and detailing; he is fu...

You ever want to savor a book but can't put it down? This was "The Way We Die Now." I knew this was the last of the Hoke Moseley series but I couldn't stop reading, the pages flew right by. Something about the book and the last 3 previous Hoke Moseley novels just makes me laugh. Hoke is an interesting character; he cares for his family but at the same time doesn't care enough. He puts everything into his career but the job never loves him back. Instead his superiors are always piling work on (so...

Rarely have I read a crime novel like this. There are several crimes to investigate, but the focus is very much on the characters. Hoke Moseley is Willeford’s detective, and there is a focus on his personal circumstances. Along with his two teenage daughters, Moseley has a female lodger, a former police herself. Understandably, when a recently released from jail criminal that Moseley helped put away moves into the house across the road Hoke is concerned. But Willeford’s focus switches, and not t...

man... i am so sad that there is no more Hoke Mosely books! this is by far my favorite new literary discovery of the year. I now need to read more Charles Willeford, but i will forever miss Hoke and his merry band of misfits.

This is the final Hoke Mosley mystery. Too bad. Would have liked to see where Hoke would be in his new assignment. Good believable plot lines. Good characters. Just a pleasant read. All except for the scene in the barn. Read it it's good.

hoke moseley's dentures are in the top ten of "inanimate objects as characters". i felt like the half of the plot with ellita and the new neighbor got a little underplayed but i will take all the hoke extended universe i can get. the middle part where hoke goes in on the cruel watermelon farmer crosses over from offbeat genre fic to like, samuel beckett writing an action movie. looking forward to re-reading these again in a few years.