Blast from the Past - Softcover

Kinky Friedman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571197493 ISBN 13: 9780571197491

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 1999

Synopsis

Return with us now to those carefree days of yesteryear known as the 1970s--when the Bee Gees were bigshots, all sex was safe, and smoking in public wasn't a hanging offense. In the heart of New York's Greenwich Village, Jewish cowboy Kinky Friedman is trying to survive as a country crooner at the Lone Star Cafe. And--thanks to a trigger-happy stalker--he's also just plain trying to survive. But who would want to blow away a lovable guy like the Kinkster? Are they really gunning for Kinky's houseguest, Barry Freed, a.k.a. Sixties radical Abbie Hoffman? Could there be a connection to Kinky's current girlfriend, Judy, who swears she's being followed by her old paramour, who perished in Vietnam? It's enough to drive a mild-mannered musician into the dirty business of detective work. But then, being shot at, almost blown up, and threatened with violent death will do that to a person.

About this title

Review

Kinky's back, and Abbie Hoffman's got him. Or he's got Abbie. Or a mysterious man with dirty blonde hair and a faded camouflage jacket has them both in his gunsights. It's always hard to tell who the bad guys are, because the country-western singer turned author draws an almost invisible line between his real life and his fictional adventures. That, of course, is where the fun comes in. In Blast from the Past, the Kinkster serves up an appetizer for his myriad fans--a prequel to such novels as Roadkill and The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover. The book explains how Kinky got into the detecting game and met up with the Greenwich Village irregulars who populate this popular series--Ratso, Rambam, McGovern, and the luscious Stephanie DuPont. The action takes place in the post-Watergate 1970s, when Abbie's hiding out in upstate New York, sex and drugs are de riguer, and nobody's ever heard of political correctness. The mystery is pretty simple--you can see the ending coming long before Kinky can--but that's never been the point of these bawdy, irreverent tales. To quote Friedman himself, "Being a private dick is pretty simple. Once you run out of cocaine, crazy ideas, and self-pitying bullshit, you're eventually left with the truth." --Jane Adams

From the Back Cover

"Superbly silly . . . From beginning to end, the Kinkster keeps the gags coming fast and thick."
--The New York Times Book Review

"KINKY IS A HIP HYBRID OF GROUCHO MARX AND SAM SPADE."
--Chicago Tribune

"TWO THUMBS-UP, AND PARDON THE BARBECUE SMEARS."
--Texas Monthly

"NOTHING IS SACRED IN A KINKY FRIEDMAN BOOK. . . . THEREIN LIES HIS CHARM."
--The Washington Post Book World

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0571197493
• ISBN 13: 9780571197491
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 244