The Shark-Infested Custard

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From the master of Miami noir comes this tale of four regular guys living in a singles apartment building who experience firsthand that there's more than one type of heat in Miami.Larry Dolman is a rather literal minded ex-cop who now works private security. Eddie Miller is an airline pilot who's studying to get his real estate license. Don Luchessi is a silver salesman who's separated from his wife but too Catholic to get a divorce. Hank Norton is a drug company rep who gets four times as many dames as any of the other guys. They are all regular guys who like to drink, play cards, meet broads, and shoot a little pool. But when a friendly bet goes horribly awry, they find themselves with two dead bodies on their hands and a homicidal husband in the wings—and acting more like hardened criminals than upstanding citizens.From the Trade Paperback edition.From Publishers WeeklyThis dated and nihilistic tale from Willeford ( Miami Blues and Sideswipe ), who died in 1988 just as his largely underground reputation was drawing mainstream attention, leads readers into some nasty territory. The protagonists, including the narrator, are four young men of the 1970s, swingers who live in a singles-only apartment block in Miami and seem at the outset pretty harmless. Gradually, however, through bad luck, greed and and even innocence, each is corrupted, stripped bare and revealed as utterly corruptible, weak, misogynist and lost. The plot begins as they bet on successfully picking up a woman; the bet leads to farce about hiding a dead body, which then necessitates another murder. One falls in love with a married woman and tangles with the man she lives with; another returns to the marriage he hates and then schemes his way out of it. As the years pass, the four move out of their original lifestyle but all retain some gruesome habits. Female readers especially may find many of these pages sad and shocking. But, especially in his early noir period, Willeford never aimed for cute; the legions of fans he snared with his later Hoke Mosely quartet of novels are in for a dark ride. Fair warning. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalLongtime writer Willeford did not gain popularity until the 1980s, when he wrote the four Hoke Moseley novels, beginning with Miami Blues (Bantam, 1985. reprint). Now, five years after his death, a long-forgotten work is being published. It tells the story of four young men who live in a Miami complex and become friends. One night, as a result of a bet, a 14-year-old girl who is picked up by one of the friends dies of an overdose. Her drug supplier is then killed and their bodies left in his car in a parking lot. The men must play out their roles in a friendship held together by trust and the events of that fatal night. The novel is decidedly not polished and is a trifle dated but has that distinctive prose touch and twist-of-fate ending that are Willeford's trademarks. Recommended for general collections.- Jo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L., OhioCopyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.