Spanking Watson: A Novel (Kinky Friedman Novels) - Hardcover

Friedman, Kinky

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684850613 ISBN 13: 9780684850610

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1999

Synopsis

The return of private eye Kinky Friedman chronicles his efforts to test his stalwart band of "Village Irregulars," seeking a right and proper sidekick among them, a search that coincides with a deadly danger menacing Kinky's upstairs neighbor. 60,000 first printing. Tour.

About this title

Review:

The same bizarre mixture of ingredients that has turned Kinky Friedman from a country musician into a popular mystery writer and hero of his own series continues in this exercise oddity, which, true to form, seems to contain something to offend virtually everyone. "If you spend a little time with lesbians and nuns, you begin to see the effect love or the absence of it can have on a human life," muses the Kinkster at one point. This comes after a campaign by Friedman to terrorize his upstairs neighbor, Winnie Katz, whose lesbian dance classes have caused the ceiling of his Greenwich Village loft to collapse. But Kinky's amateur terrorism pales by comparison to the mysterious person who wants to do some real damage to Winnie, so Friedman and his Village Irregulars turn from aggressors to protectors. Surrounded by Italian gangsters with names like Linguini and Gepetto, they plan a weird revenge scheme that involves such horrors as chainsaws and Friedman in a red wig.

The title--usually the best thing about a Kinkster book--has to do with which particular member of his motley crew will be officially chosen to play Watson to his Sherlock. But even here there are no clear answers: as Friedman says, "President Clinton is Watson. The Chinese dwarf who paints pastels on Mott Street is Watson. The world is Watson. Only Sherlock Holmes stands achingly alone on the weather-beaten, worm-eaten cross of rational thought. Sherlock Holmes, you see, is the thinking man's Jesus Christ."

--Dick Adler

From the Back Cover:

How many lesbians can dance on the head of a pin? Kinky Friedman sure as hell doesn't know, but he's learning exactly how many it takes to send the geriatric plaster tumbling from the ceiling of his downtown New York loft. The culprit is one Winnie Katz, man-hating proprietress of a lesbian dance troupe that thunders daily through his waking dreams. And when Winnie won't even give it enough of a rest to let Kinky patch the hole, our hero, lost in a blue-gray haze of Irish whiskey and cigar smoke, takes drastic action. He pens an anonymous, threatening note, hoping -- as only one lost in an alcohol-soaked fantasy can hope -- to then step in as "Ace Private Big Dick" Friedman, and save the day, thus earning the undying gratitude of Ms. Winnie.

Besides, just as Sherlock Holmes had his Watson, the Kinkster needs a suitable sidekick, and what better test? He calls on each of his Village Irregulars to solve the case: reporter Mike McGovern; Dylan look-alike Ratso Sloman; investigator Steve Rambam; and his own lady love, the delicious Stephanie Dupont. But things get dicey when the bogus death threat turns all too real, and suddenly Kinky and his Keystone crime fighters find themselves dancing -- none too daintily -- for their lives.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0684850613
• ISBN 13: 9780684850610
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224