Obituaries : Charles Willeford; Wrote Hoke Moseley Novels

Novelist Charles Willeford, known for his works featuring the colorful Miami homicide detective Hoke Moseley, died of a heart attack Sunday. He was 69.

Willeford had spent decades writing everything from paperback fiction to poetry to an autobiographical account of war.

“I was taken with his dark humor. I almost had a guilty enjoyment of it,” said Jared Kieling, a senior editor of St. Martin’s Press, publisher of the first three Moseley books. “There was an outrageousness that stood out from the commonplace books in the category.”

Willeford’s most recent book, “The Way We Die Now,” was published this month by Random House. He wrote 13 novels before the Moseley series, which also included “Miami Blues,” “New Hope for the Dead” and “Sideswipe.”

Willeford recently began attracting national recognition.

“The shame of it is that this was shaping up to be the year of Charles Willeford,” said Mitch Kaplan, owner of Books & Books in Coral Gables, Fla. “A week ago, some collectors came in the store looking to buy anything they could get from him.”

In his novels, Willeford described details of south Florida life, from the effect of chinch bugs on a lawn to cockfighting.

“Miami Blues,” “New Hope for the Dead” and “Sideswipe” were published between 1984 and 1987.

Willeford, a high school dropout, served in the Army during World War II. He began teaching in 1964 as a humanities instructor at the University of Miami.