Road Kill (Kinky Friedman Series #10)
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Are you ready to get Kinky? Kinky Friedman -- "The world's funniest, bawdiest, and most politically incorrect country singer turned mystery writer," according to The New York Times -- returns to the scene of the crime with Road Kill. With nine novels under his holster, Friedman can count President Clinton and Molly Ivins among the legions of fans who regularly partake in the hilarious adventures of his recurring eponymous protagonist, Kinky Friedman.Road Kill begins when the incorrigible Kinky Friedman, private dick and public nuisance, gets word that his old friend, the legendary singer and tokemaster-general Willie Nelson, is in some sort of trouble. Kinky promptly leaves New York City and joins his pal Willie on the road again. Upon his arrival, Kinky discovers that Willie's perpetually moving tour bus, the Honeysuckle Rose, hit and killed an Indian medicine man, resulting in mincemeat and an apparently unshakable Indian curse. After someone shoots Willie's valet and personal caretaker, mistaking him for the singer, Kinky knows he is deep in more than the heart of Texas.With the help of the Village Irregulars, some visiting Indians from a touring rock band, Cuban cigars, and a friendly bottle of Jameson's, Kinky begins to unravel the mystery. Are the Indians really out to get Willie for making their medicine man step on a rainbow? Has one of Willie's 97 ex-wives gotten so upset with her settlement that she's decided to take drastic action? Or has Willie's past involvement in the Indian-rights movement, and the resulting ill will of a not-insignificant portion of the nation's law enforcement officers, come back to haunt him?In the middle of all this sleuthing, Kinky must deal with his own midlife crisis, his broken heart, a barrage of arrows in lower Manhattan, and the blatant disrespect of his cat. Written by one of America's most outrageous, witty, and downright entertaining mystery writers, Road Kill is wild, wicked, and vintage Kinky Friedman.Publishers WeeklyEven loyal fans will probably find this 10th book (after last year's The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover) in country singer Friedman's series about a cat-loving, cigar-devouring New York City amateur detective named Kinky Friedman unsatisfying. New readers will most likely come away baffled and annoyed. The trouble starts early, as the Kinkster, after reflecting on how badly his work and social life have been faring of late, sees in his bathroom mirror a version of himself that he decides to call the Gypsy: "The face was almost mine but the eyes seemed different.... His hair was not a Hebrew natural like my own: he wore it long and dark and shiny and all wrapped up in a bright red sash." Worried about his mental health, Friedman's collection of friends, known as the Village Irregulars, throw a surprise party in his apartment. The plot doesn't begin until nearly a quarter of the way into the book when famed country singer Willie Nelsonwho just might be the Gypsy's progenitorasks for Kinky's help in a tangled but not credible or compelling case involving a dead Native American medicine man. As in all of Friedman's mysteries, there's lots of drinking, smoking, mayhem, aimless chatter and country music. The occasional charms of a real musician writing about some real people he obviously knows and admires don't redeem this uninspired performance. (Sept.)
