This weekend I finished two books by Charles Willeford. Both are worth recommending.

Willeford, who died in 1988, is a very interesting writer. He was a tank commander during WW2, and won the Silver and Bronze stars and a purple heart. As a writer, he didn’t plot things out before starting. Rather, he got the seed of an idea and started writing without really knowing where he was going.

I’ve read four books by Willeford now, and all are totally different.

• The Burnt Orange Conspiracy (1971).
• Pick-Up (1967).
• Miami Blues (1984).
• Cockfighter (1972).

In “Miami Blues,” his most well-known book, he created the character Hoke Mosely, a police detective. He wrote several other novels starring Mosely, and I’ll need to read them, because I like him a lot. And the Miami locale adds all kinds of color. 

“Cockfighter” is narrated first-person by Frank Mansfield, a well-known chicken-fighter in the south. This book will tell you all you could ever want to know about cockfighting–all the tricks and techniques, how to train and feed chickens–really, everything. And you probably don’t want to know anything about cockfighting. 

A few years before, Mansfield shot off his mouth and, as a result, ended up losing his chance for a championship. Angry at himself, he took a vow of silence: he wouldn’t talk until he won that championship as the best cockfighter in the south. So throughout the book, the main character doesn’t talk–only points, gestures, and scribbles notes. But this being first-person, we’re privy to Mansfield’s thoughts. Everyone else thinks he just lost his voice somehow; they don’t realize he’s voluntarily not talking. This makes the book extra interesting.

Mansfield starts out down on his luck, and must build back up to pursue the championship. Think of the movie “Tin Cup,” but in the world of illegal cockfighting. As I read, I thought of the underworld of dogfighting in which Michael Vick was enmeshed. Both are cruel worlds. 

Because of the detail, the atmospherics, I’ll remember “Cockfighter” long after the plot of “Miami Blues” fades away. But I’ll be reading more about Hoke Mosely.