Product Description
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.

Amazon.com 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

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 26 reviews)

A guy can only stand so much sarcasm...

Someone once said that sarcasm is the lowest form of humor. I really didn't have a complete understanding or appreciation for that sentiment until I read this book. Sarcasm abounds from cover to cover and though it provides for some genuinely funny moments, it's overuse tends to leave the reader with a sour taste for the both the writer and the characters.

The heavy dose of sarcasm that Friedman unloads begins to lose it's impact about half-way through the book. When used properly sarcasm can be an effective way to elicit a laugh, but when not used properly the deliverer begins to come across and shallow and crass. Such is the case with the main character (Friedman) in this book.

The story is entertaining - Friedman manipulates his friends in an effort to solve two seemingly unrelated mysteries. Hijinx, silly conversations and madcap events ensue. His friends are an interesting collection of normal people and odd balls who continually play the foil to Friedman's sense of humor. And more often then not it works well, but eventually the recurring jokes, snippy attitude and unusual situations wear thin. It becomes difficult to like a guy who seemingly cannot provide a straight answer to a question or answer his phone with a normal greeting.

This book is funny and entertaining...no doubt. But this book's one-trick-pony approach to the laughs ultimately brings it way down. And, as a result, it's not the kind of book that is going to leave any lasting impression.

December 01, 2006

My Favorite Kinky

This was my first and favorite Kiny Friedman book. I think it's a great starting point. It's not supposed to be great literature for the ages. It IS absolutely hilarious.
September 29, 2006

No Kink, Sherlock

The uniquely offensive and offensively unique Kinky Friedman strikes again in another weird tale of himself as a lazy private eye. Well he's not actually offensive if you have a sense of humor, so let's just say he's politically incorrect in a jovial, purposeful way. In this tale, Kinky the underachieving gumshoe plans to get revenge on his noisy neighbor, and thus creates a fake mystery in which he can con his cronies and hangers-on into doing all the legwork, and so he can choose who is the best Watson to his Sherlock. But the hijinks go topsy-turvy when a real criminal steals Kinky's thunder and makes him do some work for a change. Other than that, there's not a helluva lot of plot in this story, as Friedman would rather write about eccentric characters making wisecracks at each other. This still leads to a laugh-out-loud funny read, with a few sly, subversive social statements poking their heads above everyone's goofball antics. Though Friedman's writing style does depend a little too much on forced similes, like "about as bright and cheery as a coalmine in South Africa," the wisecracks are so cheesy that you'll wish you thought of them yourself. Overall this is a knee-slapping winner in Friedman's serious cornball eccentric sweepstakes. Kinky for Governor!!! [~doomsdayer520~]
September 01, 2006

Embedded a piece of Idi Amin and of Mother Theresa

Richard Samet "Kinky" FRIEDMAN, writing books diabolically titled alike "How To Lose Friends And Irritate People", "Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola", "Reflections on Country Singers, Presidents, and Other Troublemakers" or "How I Was Born in a Manager, Died in the Saddle, and Came Back as a Horny Toad" (or creating songs together with his "Texas Jewboys" titled "They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore") - he is a satirist, checking out, if his readers do have the aristocratic nobility to waste their time; so his stories ain't really important, they are making jokes for example about the crime-genre. The score is by Friedman's style of lightness. The German writer and composer E. T. A. Hoffmann jumpes into my head with his phantastic "The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr" (satirical resemblance to 'The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy', Laurence Sterne): while reading Kinky Friedman's dialogues with his nonchalance cat. Alike the german romantic E.T.A. Hoffmann Friedman uses in "Spanking Watson" a cat view to create a distance to the things. Of course Friedman, who is able to treat ironically President Bill Clinton (presenting him Cuban Cigars) or President George W. (talk shopping with him on the White-House-balcony about football-stars), also is able to make jokes about italian mafia killers, lesbian dancers and day-dreaming detectives without any real work. He *manages to blend, with overpowering skill and boldness, fantasy, wittiness, irony, sharp political criticism and lyricism, giving to the cultivated reader an endless cornucopia of sophisticated, intelligent gladness* a customer wrote in his review - about E.T.A. Hoffmann. It could be said about Kinky Friedman too. My favorite sentence in this Friedman-book: "In everyone of us there is embedded a piece of Idi Amin and a piece of Mother Theresa as well. We should be grateful, that they never have had children together."

July 11, 2005

You Never Marry the First Person You Watch Casablanca With

"Spanking Watson" is Kinky's eleventh book, and was first published in 1999. As with his other books, Kinky has cast himself as the amateur-PI hero, while some of the other characters have been based on actual friends. As with real-life, the book's Kinky is a cigar-smoking, cat-loving, espresso-guzzling, whiskey-drinking, ex-country and western performer. He shares his loft on Vandam Street with his cat - who he occasionally leaves in charge. Conversations between Kinky and the cat tend to be somewhat one-sided, while the cat consistently refuses to answer the telephone.

Winnie Katz still lives upstairs, and continues to run her lesbian dance classes. While this has never caused Kinky any serious problem before, it's been the cause of a slight inconvenience now : the constant pounding on Winnie's floor has left a rather large hole in the Kinkster's roof. Rambam, a genuine PI and Village Irregular, has arranged for two repairmen to help out - Vinnie and Gepetto, known "associates" of Joe the Hyena. Kinky had received his espresso machine several years earlier from Joe, a token of thanks for rescuing his daughter from a mugger. Vinnie and Gepetto, admiring the machine, tell Kinky there's only one problem : Joe doesn't have a daughter. Obviously, Kinky's curious - but Joe is, of course, the sort of Italian "businessman" you don't get curious about.

On a lonely Friday night, in an anger encouraged by several generous helpings of Jameson's Whiskey, Kinky writes a series of threatening letters to Winnie - never, of course,with any intention of delivering them, never mind acting on them. When Ratso catches sight of them the next day, Kinky decides to put them to good use. He would provide each of the Village Irregulars with a copy of a note, and ask for their help - while asking them to keep their investigations secret from the other members of the gang. The Irregular who successfully solved the "case" would officially become "Watson" to Kinky's "Sherlock". Of course, this plan would have the added bonus of disrupting not only Winnie's life but also her dance classes.

"Spanking Watson" has much in common with the other books by Kinky I've read. Not an entirely serious 'whodunit', it is a fast moving and easily read book. The story, I felt, is much better than his earlier books, and he still delivers his one-liners. While his quips won't be to everyone's tastes, it was a book I thoroughly enjoyed.
August 13, 2004

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover (Kinky Friedman Novels)
by Kinky Friedman

The Mile High Club (Kinky Friedman Novels)
by Kinky Friedman

Blast from the Past (Kinky Friedman Novels)
by Kinky Friedman

The Prisoner of Vandam Street: A Novel
by Kinky Friedman

Roadkill (Kinky Friedman Novels)
by Kinky Friedman