Hoke Moseley

I just finished my first Hoke Moseley novel, Sideswipe. Was it good? Yes. Quite. How good? Let me put it this way: I've been a pretty dedicated Green Bay Packers fan since the Ice Bowl triumph in 1967. Well, tonight I had turned on the Packers / Giants game and started watching, but during the first commercial break I took a look at Sideswipe. I only had two dozen pages to go. Next thing I knew I was closing the book and the first ten minutes of the first quarter of the game was gone. So . . . THAT good.

Sideswipe is actually the third Hoke Moseley novel. It was the only one available at the library, though, so I picked it up when I got all of the other Charles Willeford books the library was holding. But I'd also ordered the Hoke Moseley Omnibus, so I'd intended to wait for it to arrive so that I could read the books in the proper order. I ripped through my other Willeford books very quickly, though, and faced with the prospect of a Willeford-less day, I decided to just have a little look at Sideswipe. You already know how that turned out. Sure hope that omnibus arrives today.

I've also been looking for the movie version of Miami Blues. I'd intended to wait until I'd read the novel before doing any serious looking, but since I was out of Hoke this morning, I looked around. Not available on Netflix. Only available via Amazon for sale or if you joined STARZ. But then I found it on the You Tub . . . in its entirety. Only two or three problems: (1) the sound has been speeded up, so all of the people sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks; (2) the picture has been reversed, so anytime there's writing it's backwards; (3) the picture is often cropped in very strange ways . . . so that, for instance, a speaking character's chest and neck will be in the shot, but not his head. But what the heck, it was free, and at least I got to see it. And it was actually a pretty decent movie. Alec Baldwin does a really good job as the bad guy, Frederick J. Frenger Jr.. And Fred Ward is pretty much perfect as Hoke Moseley The movie also features Vic Morrow's daughter, Jennifer Jason Leigh, as a young prostitute--and she looks a lot younger than 28.

So I am mos def up for some more Hoke Moseley. As soon as possible. Unfortunately there are no other movies out there. Paul Giamatti did his best . . . did a pilot for a series for FX . . . but apparently the network was not interested. Sometimes it just bes like that.