Charles Willeford: Cockfighter (UK 2014)

From the Publisher:
Frank Mansfield is the cockfighter, a man obsessed with an illegal sport which is unspeakably cruel, unthinkably bloody - and incredibly exciting. His pursuit of the champion's medal takes him into the seamy underbelly of rural Southern life - into the hot, dusty small-town circuits, where greed and corruption vie only with lust and violence...

Charles Willeford: Cockfighter. With a Foreword by Lawrence Block. The Murder Room / Orion Books, ISBN: 9781471914379 (August, 2014), eBook, 846 KB (ca. 224 p.), £4.99.

Charles Willeford: Cockfighter (USA 2013)

From the Publisher:
A former professional boxer, actor, horse trainer and radio announcer, Charles Willeford (1919-1988) is best known for his Miami-based crime novels featuring hard-boiled detective Hoke Moseley, including Miami Blues and Sideswipe. His career as a writer began in the late 1940s, but it was his 1972 novel Cockfighter that announced his name to a wider audience.

Of that book, Harry Crews said, "Charles Willeford renders the sport with such knowledge and attention to detail that... I had the almost inexpressible impression of being on my knees again beside the great fighting pits of the southern circuit."

Frank Mansfield is the titular cockfighter: a silent and fiercely contrary man whose obsession with winning will cost him almost everything. Mansfield haunts the cockpits, bars and roads of the rural South in the early 1960s, adrift but always capable of nearly anything. First published in complete form in 1972, and adapted by Willeford for a Monte Hellman film in 1974 (which became infamous for its use of real animals in the fight scenes), the novel Cockfighter has been out of print for nearly 20 years.

Charles Willeford: Cockfighter. The Overlook Press, ISBN: 9781468306903 (August, 2013), eBook, 483 KB (ca. 225 p.), $14.99.

Charles Willeford: Cockfighter (USA 1987)

From the Publisher:
Charles Willeford is the bestselling author of Miami Blues, New Hope for the Dead and Something about a Soldier -- and Frank Mansfield is the COCKFIGHTER. Relentless, enigmatic, possessed of a gut instinct for survival and a powerful obsession with winning in a flourishing but illegal sport which sophisticated people never discuss... for it is unspeakably cruel, unthinkably bloody - and incredibly exciting.

COCKFIGHTER is the stunning novel of a singleminded man whose pursuit of the Cockfighter of the year medal takes him into the seamy underbelly of rural Southern life. into the hot, dusty small towns where hoarse, sweating men crouch around a cockpit, cheering as two gamecocks with steel tear at each other.and where beautiful, willing women administer their own special brand of succor to winner and loser alike.

Charles Willeford: Cockfighter. Creative Arts Book Company / Black Lizard Books, ISBN: 0887390269 (August, 1987), 224 p., $3.95.

Charles Willeford: Cockfighter (USA 1974)

From the Publisher:
Now A New World Pictures Release Starring Warren Oates
Frank Mansfield is the COCKFIGHTER. Relentless, enigmatic, possessed of a gut instinct for survival and a powerful obsession with winning in a flourishing but illegal sport which sophisticated people never discuss... for it is unspeakably cruel, unthinkably bloody - and incredibly exciting.

COCKFIGHTER is the stunning novel of a singleminded man whose pursuit of the Cockfighter of the year medal takes him into the seamy underbelly of rural Southern life. into the hot, dusty small towns where hoarse, sweating men crouch around a cockpit, cheering as two gamecocks with steel tear at each other.and where beautiful, willing women administer their own special brand of succor to winner and loser alike.

Charles Willeford: Cockfighter. New York: Avon Books, 1974, Avon 20495, 255 p., $1.50.

Charles Willeford: Cockfighter (USA 1962)

From the Publisher:
The dedicated obsession of a fanatical sport. As in the bullring - to the death. Legal in Florida - illegal in the forty-nine other States. The iron will of a man, whose entire life was channeled into one supreme ambition!

'I shrugged indifferently and sat down at the edge of the pit to arm my cock. I opened my gaff case, removed a bottle of typewriter-cleaning solvent, and cleaned Sandspur's spur stumps. After fitting tight chamois-skin coverings over both spurs, I slipped the metal sockets of the short heels over the covered stumps and tied them with waxed string, setting them low and a trifle to the outside. The points of the sharpened heels are sharper than needles and a man has to be careful when he arms a cock...'

"I should be the happiest woman in the world. But once in awhile -- just once in awhile, mind you, Mr. Mansfield, I'd like to go into my bathroom and find the toilet seat up instead of down." Color flooded her face and the freckles almost disappeared...'

The Editor's View
Charles Willeford is a fine writer. One of the finest writers I know. There is more humor, understanding of life and its pathways, and depth to his writing than in most writers who have made it big on the bestseller lists -- and sooner or later, he'll make it-- sooner or later...
Tom Anthony

Charles Willeford: Cockfighter. Chicago: Chicago Paperback House, 1962, "A hardcover paperback original", CPH B-120, 286 p., $0.60.