ABOUT THE BOOK

Freddy "Junior" Frenger, psycho fresh out of San Quentin flies into Miami airport with a pocketful of stolen credit cards and disappears leaving behind the corpse of a Hare Krishna. Soon homicide detective, Hoke Moseley is pursuing the chameleonlike Frenger and his airheaded hooker, girlfriend through the smart hotels, Cuban ghettoes and seedy surburban malls of Miami in a deadly game of hide and seek.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

'The Pope of Psycho-Pulp' - Time Out

'the master of cynical Florida crime fiction' - The Times

'a crime writers' crime writer lionised by peers such as Elmore Leonard and Lawrence Block ... dangerous indeed, with a bitter humour, black as it comes but also so sweet' - The Herald

'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford. Miami Blues is the real stuff' - Elmore Leonard

'Miami seems to have eclipsed L.A. & New York as the crime capital, so it's fitting that the best book on the mystery racks these days should be Charles Willeford's Miami Blues' - Village Voice

'Bone-deep satire..a harrowing and suprisingly amusing story..a terrific thriller.' - Publishers Weekly

Review: Yorkshire Post, 22nd March 2001

Miami, and Florida, have almost been done to death, so to speak, in crime books, but Willeford's satirical glance at the criminal classes is as tangy as a slice of Key Lime Pie. Willeford's often been eclipsed by the likes of Elmore Leonard, but it's a shame, because he tells a mean tale, and the stories still appear as crisp as a tortilla chip, nearly 20 years after they were written. A Hare Krishna follower is found dead - of shock - after his finger was broken when he was foolish enough to try to beg from a psychopath. Homicide detective Hoke Moseley is soon on the trail of said psychopath, and his dozy girlfriend, and then the fun really begins. Engaging, funny and addictive.

ESSENTIAL TRIVIA

Willeford's wartime career saw him serving as a tank commander in the U.S. army, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge and being awarded the Bronze Star, the Silver Star and the Purple Heart.
He said of his fellow soldiers - "A good half of the men you deal with in the Army are psychopaths. There's a pretty hefty overlap between the military population and the prison population..."