Miami Neon

Following Chester Himes and Ross Macdonald, Penguin Modern Classics' latest crime novelist gentrification project is the Hoke Moseley series from Charles Willeford. I'd never encountered these novels before (the only Willeford I'd read, the wonderfully titled The Shark-Infested Custard, is a complete blur in my memory), but I've just started on the first, and am enjoying it immensely. This is how it opens: from this, I imagine you'll know whether this is your cup of tea or not...

In any case, these books were first published, and are set, in the 1980s: more specifically, gaudy and crass 1980s Miami. Penguin commissioned Edward Bettison (who did their Macdonald covers too--see the link in the first paragraph) to provide appropriately neon-glowing retro cover designs. (And this time they remembered to credit him, too.) Click for huge versions.