A writer of sharp, often sardonic prose coupled with dark wit, Charles Willeford belongs as much to the school of Nathanael West and Flannery O'Connor as among his hard-boiled crime-writing contemporaries. While his novels all inevitably contain crime and vice, it was only in the last years of his life that he achieved notoriety as a detective novelist with a series of four books that follow the personal and professional escapades of Miami police officer Hoke Moseley. The Moseley novels, published between 1984 and 1988, brought about a much deserved rediscovery of Willeford and resulted in the return to print of his strongest early works. This revival brought to a wider audience a writer of both depth and aspiration, who cared more for the literary merit of his work than for its commercial success.

Willeford concerned himself with issues relevant in the post-World War II era, including race and the...