Charles Willeford’s novels have been marketed as crime fiction, although a lot of them weren’t mysteries and a few handled their crimes nearly as afterthoughts. Like a slapstick existential drama, they learn as if somebody got down to reply the query, “What if Dostoevsky had been funny?”
Willeford began his profession in California, and several other of his tales are set there. (One in all my favourite Willeford books, 1960’s The Girl Chaser, bears the unmistakable imprint of the used-car tons and low-budget studios of Los Angeles.) However as soon as he settled into the Sunshine State, the Sunshine State settled into his work. When an individual with Willeford’s darkly comedian sensibility finds himself within the land of Florida Man, he’ll discover it laborious to not write concerning the place.
So Cockfighter (1962) excursions the agricultural world of unlawful Florida cockfighting, as seen by way of the eyes of a gamecock coach who has taken a vow of silence. The Burnt Orange Heresy (1971) crops itself firmly in Palm Seaside because it satirizes the artwork market. Miami Blues (1984) is a narrative about homicide, theft, and prostitution, however it’s simply as a lot about Miami’s tough American jumble.
That final e-book proved well-liked, and readers appeared looking forward to extra novels about its protagonist, a cop named Hoke Moseley. So Willeford promptly wrote a follow-up the place Moseley commits one of the crucial repellent crimes doable. His agent refused to promote it, and Willeford resigned himself to producing a much less self-destructive sequence of sequels; after a long time of subsisting as a cult author, the creator spent his ultimate years as a business success.
“Just tell the truth,” Willeford preferred to say, “and they’ll accuse you of writing black humor.” Going by that dark-laugh commonplace, Willeford wrote many truths certainly: about cops, crooks, preachers, artists, and humanity writ massive.