Customer Reviews

The Way We Die Now

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The truth is, all of Florida crime writers after Willeford can type until their fingertips fall off, but Willeford will always remain the boss.

Willeford is the most deadpan writer imaginable. His Hoke Mosely books are totally without affectation or author intrusion, unlike certain other Florida crime writers whom I won't mention.

Willeford such a master, he can tug at your heartstrings without manipulating you like most writers do. _The Way We Die Now_ is no exception. For all of his cynicism, Hoke Moseley loves his kids as best he can, and he always goes out of his way to help the underdog. All of the Moseley novels leave us with a sense that life is worth living in spite of the pain and ugliness.

Also typical in this book is Willeford's refusal to cowtow to political correctness. I'm sure all the affirmative action types were retching with disgust when this book came out. Hilarious!

Willeford's prose style is so unapologetically straight-ahead that there's no point in trying to analyze it. I remember the first time I read a Hoke Moseley novel. I thought, "This guy either has no idea how to write, of he's one of the greatest writers of all time." It's because Willeford knows that the story and the characters rule. We're so accustomed to writers who can't resist showing the reader how clever they are. When a real storyteller comes along, we don't know how to take him.

There's simply nobody else like Willeford.

Charles Willeford's well-deserved reputation as a writer of crime novels is based largely on the exploits of Miami police detective Hoke Moseley. In this page-turner, we find the author at the top of his form, with Hoke fully engaged in his life as a cop and family man. While busily solving a "cold" murder case, Hoke is dispatched on a puzzling and hazardous undercover job in a neighboring county. At the same time, a parolee who some years earlier had promised to kill him moves in right across the street from Hoke's house (how this turns out is what separates Willeford from the pack). In the house, Hoke lives with his two teenage daughters and his former officemate Ellita Sanchez and her infant son. With everyone in his unconventional but harmonious family contributing their share, Hoke is free to spend some time in his bedroom, pondering his problems and watching TV cop shows. And how unusual it is to find a cop enjoying a satisfactory family life! In a few brief sentences, Willeford suggests how this is managed - a sort of primer for disfunctional households, perhaps. Throughout the story's beautifully detailed and ingenious turnings, Hoke manages by dint of his experience and common sense to save his skin and do the right thing in general, which in some instances consists in doing nothing. At the end of the novel, he finds himself being coerced by his superiors into accepting a promotion in grade and assignment as head of internal affairs - a position he comes to realize he is well suited for. But that intriguing eventuality would have been the subject of another book, wouldn't it.

This novel is a last in a series, and established fans who come to get their fix of Hoke Mosley will not be disappointed.
I came to it first and I liked the believable characters and compelling descriptions. But ... not much actually happens.
The undercover assignment is set up, but then as soon as Hoke arrives at the place he blows the guy away and beats his sidekick to death - and that's it! As for the cold case subplot, Hoke achieves a breakthrough by claiming it's solved and panicking the guy - couldn't he have done this any time in the previous three years? Finally, the released revenge-promising con is made to buy a place across the road from Hoke just to rid him of Ellita, as it seems.
And what's this about an Orthodox Jew with his favourite brand of tuna?
I think the book needed a careful editor.

In The Way We Die Now, Charles Willeford portrays Sergeant Hoke Moseley of the Miami PD as both a hard-boiled action hero and as a soft-hearted family man without breaking a sweat. For that alone it's worth reading.

This Hoke Moseley book is the best I have ever read. I have read Sideswipe, and it's not nearly as good as The Way We Die Now. It is something that Quentin Tarantino should make a movie from. I will give this book **** stars.

This Hoke Moseley book is the best I have ever read. I have read Sideswipe, and it's not nearly as good as The Way We Die Now. It is something that Quentin Tarantino should make a movie from. I will give this book **** stars.

This is the fourth and last book of Willeford's Hoke Moseley series. If you've read the first three, you'll read this one. Hoke goes slumming and bumming to check out labor abuses in south central Florida and encounters various out-country practices that shock and amuse. There is a gloomy sex scene in this one, but things do eventually get blowed up. I am only sad that Charles Willeford went home after writing this book.

'The Way We Die Now' is perhaps a prophetic title to Charles Willeford's last novel, and of course the last also of his Hoke Mosley series; the author died not long after he wrote it. Sadly, it is far from his best material (my preference is 'The Woman Chaser'). Yet for those who have read 'Miami Blues', the first of the Hoke Mosely series, you'll undoubtedly want to read every one ... including 'The Way We Die Now'.

Hoke Mosely is a member of Miami's police force who is certainly a character. While a seemingly fine police investigator he is a mess (personally, physically, emotionally). He lives with his ex working partner and her baby, along with his two teenaged daughters. As in most of the other Hoke Mosely books the plot primarily involves Hoke's personal life rather than any sort of crime mystery. However in 'The Way We Die Now' the author takes Hoke to a migrant labor camp to sort out some rumoured atrocities, which I found to be very interesting reading, and Hoke also sorts out the mysterious death of a Miami doctor, a not-so-interesting subplot. On balance this book is generally above average for the Hoke Mosely series but, as I mentioned above, is much less enjoyable than his early (1950s/1960s) noir novels such as 'The Woman Chaser'.

Bottom line: a fine conclusion to the Hoke Mosely series and Charles Willeford's career. He is missed.

The Way We Die Now is the last and least of the Hoke Moseley series. Not much happens and the things that are set up are all resolved far too quickly and without much fanfare. As in New Hope for the Dead, Willeford once again forgets to have a quality sociopath adversary to switch chapters back and forth with Hoke. While New Hope For The Dead managed to get away with this (just barely) because it was such a fine character study on Hoke, The Way We Die now fails. Sure, it's still Willeford writing and, as a result, the book is mildly entertaining, but it is just not up to the author's usual high standards. Unless you're hopelessly hooked on Hoke, I wouldn't bother with this one or New Hope For The Dead. Miami Blues and Sideswipe: A Hoke Moseley Detective Thriller, however, are both fantastic reads I can't recommend enough.

Charles Willeford's book "The Way We Die Now" is flat out great. I am a hard boiled genre fan and this might be the best of the genre. What's amazing to me is that I have spent years reading mysteries and thrillers and had not come across Willeford's Hoke Moseley before. I read "Burnt Orange Heresy" a long time ago, and it was all-right, though missing something in comparison to this. If you are in the same boat, and have not read a Moseley book before, I would suggest that you take a chance and get this book. I would guarantee (if only I could) that this is a five star all the way read.

"The Way We Die Now" is not the first in this series. Instead it is "Miami Blues" which is also pretty good but not up to this book. You don't need to have read the earlier titles. Just step in and the character and his changing surroundings make sense, so you wont be out of place.

Hoke Moseley is one of the finest creations to grace the genre field. Fully fleshed and human to a degree rarely seen. Maybe Matt Scudder, Lawrence Blocks fictional character is a good comparison. The book takes place on the grimey streets of Miami and around Florida of the 1980's. Having grown up during this time, Willefords prose really took me back. The tension between Hoke and the racist police force, his family, his neighbors, and the community at large will suck you in. At the same time the story is very amusing and light. Perfect.