RARA-AVIS: Recent reads: Willeford's Hoke Moseley series

From: Doug Bassett ( dj_bassett@yahoo.com)
Date: 25 Sep 2004


I recently reread MIAMI BLUES and NEW HOPE FOR THE DEAD, with SIDESWIPE and THE WAY WE DIE NOW on tap.

It struck me, this time around, that Moseley works because he's the Willeford psycho as hero. Certainly he has as flat an affect as any of the guys he's chasing: there's a great bit in NEW HOPE where Moseley confronts a guy who murdered his wife for a roulette system, and the two sound almost interchangable.

Although Freddy Frenger's rather pitiful, forlorn attempt to create "normality" in the middle of whacko craziness makes MIAMI interesting, I found that I liked NEW HOPE better. It's a straight up police procedural -- I believe the only one of the four, the others are I think more "thrillers" in conception -- and I'm not usually crazy about the genre, which tends to be a little gauzy and unfocused for my tastes. (I'm not all that interested in police procedure, and the usual "work many cases" aspect usually means for me a general lack of story interest.) NEW HOPE, though, works because Moseley is such a weirdo. There is real entertainment in seeing him give the big "sex talk" to his daughters, or advise his partner on pregnancy, or trying to score.

doug

===== Doug Bassett dj_bassett@yahoo.com

                
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