Roadkill - Hardcover

Friedman, Kinky

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 068480378X ISBN 13: 9780684803784

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1997

Synopsis

The incorrigible country-singer-cum-writer offers another mystery starring his eponymous protagonist, who undertakes a life-threatening mission to aid his old pal, Willie Nelson, when Nelson becomes involved in a medicine man's death. 100,000 first printing. Tour.

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Reviews

Asking whether a Kinky Friedman story is too self-indulgent is like asking whether the Sahara Desert is a mite too dry. But you have to wonder about the Sage of Vandam Street's tenth case, which wobbles from a spectral conversation with the Gypsy in Kinky's bathroom mirror to a Greenwich surprise party to a stint as ``America's guest'' about Honeysuckle Rose, the funky tour-bus home of country singer Willie Nelson--that Willie Nelson, at least in the same way The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover (1996) was about that Al Capone and J. Edgar--before declaring its intentions. To make a long story short (something the Kinkster would sooner excuse himself for profanity than do), ever since Honeysuckle Rose ran down a drunken medicine man somewhere in Arizona, Willie's been plagued by presentiments of his own death. Somebody calling himself The Green Arrow is taunting him with threatening notes; he's received an evil medicine bundle courtesy of Native Americans who aren't even native to Arizona; and the bundle has vanished only to reappear in the Niagara Suite of the Buffalo Holiday Inn, where somebody has shot Ben Dorsey, the valet/caretaker who looks a lot like his boss. Can Kinky and his Village Irregulars change the oil in Willie's karma before the pan runs as dry as the aforementioned Sahara? The mystery (what there is of it) fizzles, as usual, but that doesn't keep Kinky from being as funny, sad, and blasphemous as ever while laying down another peerlessly cosmic paranoid fantasy without ever getting worked up about it. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Friedman's annual mystery novels have always served more as platforms for the rantings of a true eccentric--that is to say, vehicles for Friedman's brand of non sequitur topped off by his personal blend of kinky logic and Groucho Marxism ("horseshit cocktail chatter," he calls it)--than as honest-to-goodness detective stories, so trying to figure out their plots is seldom worth the trouble. Nevertheless, the tenth mystery starring Kinky as Kinky, is his best in years, largely due to the guest-star appearance of singer Willie Nelson, "the last living folk hero in America." Someone seems to have placed an Indian curse on the "Red-Headed Stranger," and while on the road again in his infamous bus, the Honeysuckle Rose, Willie has to dodge the IRS, a few ex-wives, and a bullet or two. During the course of this stretcher, Willie and Kinky down a lot of Jameson and smoke a lot of cigars (and reefer) as well as engage in many pointless conversations with Kinky's inscrutable cat. Kinky's kvetching mope is an excellent counterpoint to Willie's Zen Texan. Let's hope we see them paired again. Benjamin Segedin

You gotta hand it to the guy: not only does the New York Times call Friedman the "funniest...most politically incorrect country singer turned mystery writer" alive, but he makes Bill Clinton laugh. In his latest mystery, a member of Willie Nelson's band is shot by someone gunning for Nelson himself, and Friedman (as protagonist) must investigate.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 068480378X
• ISBN 13: 9780684803784
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256