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Kinky Friedman #1-3
Kinky Friedman: Three Complete Mysteries
A collection of three complete Manhattan mysteries by best-selling author, Kinky Friedman. This collection features Greenwich Killing Time, When the Cat's Away, and A Case of Lone Star.
627 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1992
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152 people want to read
About the author
Kinky Friedman
70 books288 followersRichard S. "Kinky" Friedman is an American singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, politician and former columnist for Texas Monthly who styles himself in the mold of popular American satirists Will Rogers and Mark Twain. He was one of two independent candidates in the 2006 election for the office of Governor of Texas. Receiving 12.6% of the vote, Friedman placed fourth in the six-person race.
Friedman was born in Chicago to Jewish parents, Dr. S. Thomas Friedman and his wife Minnie (Samet) Friedman. The family moved to a ranch in central Texas a few years later. Friedman had an early interest in both music and chess, and was chosen at age 7 as one of 50 local players to challenge U.S. grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky to simultaneous matches in Houston. Reshevsky won all 50 matches, but Friedman was by far the youngest competitor.
Friedman graduated from Austin High School in Austin, Texas in 1962 and earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin in 1966, majoring in Psychology. He took part in the Plan II Honors program and was a member of the Tau Delta Phi fraternity. During his freshman year, Chinga Chavin gave Friedman the nickname "Kinky" because of his curly hair.
Friedman served two years in the United States Peace Corps, teaching on Borneo in Malaysia with John Gross. During his service in the Peace Corps, he met future Texas Jewboy road manager Dylan Ferrero, with whom he still works today. Friedman lives at Echo Hill Ranch, his family's summer camp near Kerrville, Texas. He founded Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch, also located near Kerrville, whose mission is to care for stray, abused and aging animals; more than 1,000 dogs have been saved from animal euthanasia.
Series:
* Kinky Friedman Mystery
Friedman was born in Chicago to Jewish parents, Dr. S. Thomas Friedman and his wife Minnie (Samet) Friedman. The family moved to a ranch in central Texas a few years later. Friedman had an early interest in both music and chess, and was chosen at age 7 as one of 50 local players to challenge U.S. grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky to simultaneous matches in Houston. Reshevsky won all 50 matches, but Friedman was by far the youngest competitor.
Friedman graduated from Austin High School in Austin, Texas in 1962 and earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin in 1966, majoring in Psychology. He took part in the Plan II Honors program and was a member of the Tau Delta Phi fraternity. During his freshman year, Chinga Chavin gave Friedman the nickname "Kinky" because of his curly hair.
Friedman served two years in the United States Peace Corps, teaching on Borneo in Malaysia with John Gross. During his service in the Peace Corps, he met future Texas Jewboy road manager Dylan Ferrero, with whom he still works today. Friedman lives at Echo Hill Ranch, his family's summer camp near Kerrville, Texas. He founded Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch, also located near Kerrville, whose mission is to care for stray, abused and aging animals; more than 1,000 dogs have been saved from animal euthanasia.
Series:
* Kinky Friedman Mystery
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 21, 2014
A Case of Lone Star: Someone is going around killing others, leaving Hank Williams song lyrics as clues. Kinky Friedman, being a country western aficianado, uses his knowledge and detective skills to find the killer.
Greenwich Killing Time: This is Friedman's first book, but strangely the second installment in this collection. I enjoyed the Hank Williams connection from A Case of Lone Star in the other story, but this one was fine also with the added bonus of a "ghost". A bit of a disjointed story, but I feel the Friedman-author was really flexing his muscles when it came to writing the Friedman-character. Fine enough twist for a light mystery, just like A Case of Lone Star. Apparently Friedman was doing a lot of blow when he wrote this, and I think that's probably evident from the reading.
When the Cat's Away: Kinky-the-character (and I assume Kinky-the-author as well) is a hard-drinkin', cigar-smokin', cat-lovin' mofo. This addition to the collection involves the theft of a cat at a cat show, though, luckily, not Kinky's own kitteh. This one didn't work very much for me at all, though probably mostly because I'm a bit over this collection and these stories. A little Kinky goes a long way.
These are certainly fun reads, and I think anyone who is more into these sorts of mysteries would enjoy it more than I did. This amateur sleuth is extra rough around the edges, a little misogynistic, a tad racist, and the humor throughout with some of the one-liners were amusing at times, but grew old quickly. You know what else grew old quickly? Calling a telephone a "blower". Every. Time.
While Kinky himself has a background and is a well fleshed out character, most of the supporting cast is one-dimensional, especially the suspects, which made me mostly just not care very much how things wrapped up.
Then again, I found this for free in the Give-a-Book, Take-a-Book mailbox thing outside my boyfriend's store, so I can't really complain. It was fine for being a free book. I don't think I'll be reading more of Friedman's mysteries in the future, but they were fine to pass the time. I'm much more interested in Friedman the country-singer-turned-politician-turned-author. If there's a bio out there, I'll read it.
In the meantime, the best part about this book was carrying it on the bus and conveniently accidentally covering all the words in the title except "The Kinky" with my cell phone and having those poor Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University boys fall over themselves trying to see what I was really reading.
Greenwich Killing Time: This is Friedman's first book, but strangely the second installment in this collection. I enjoyed the Hank Williams connection from A Case of Lone Star in the other story, but this one was fine also with the added bonus of a "ghost". A bit of a disjointed story, but I feel the Friedman-author was really flexing his muscles when it came to writing the Friedman-character. Fine enough twist for a light mystery, just like A Case of Lone Star. Apparently Friedman was doing a lot of blow when he wrote this, and I think that's probably evident from the reading.
When the Cat's Away: Kinky-the-character (and I assume Kinky-the-author as well) is a hard-drinkin', cigar-smokin', cat-lovin' mofo. This addition to the collection involves the theft of a cat at a cat show, though, luckily, not Kinky's own kitteh. This one didn't work very much for me at all, though probably mostly because I'm a bit over this collection and these stories. A little Kinky goes a long way.
These are certainly fun reads, and I think anyone who is more into these sorts of mysteries would enjoy it more than I did. This amateur sleuth is extra rough around the edges, a little misogynistic, a tad racist, and the humor throughout with some of the one-liners were amusing at times, but grew old quickly. You know what else grew old quickly? Calling a telephone a "blower". Every. Time.
While Kinky himself has a background and is a well fleshed out character, most of the supporting cast is one-dimensional, especially the suspects, which made me mostly just not care very much how things wrapped up.
Then again, I found this for free in the Give-a-Book, Take-a-Book mailbox thing outside my boyfriend's store, so I can't really complain. It was fine for being a free book. I don't think I'll be reading more of Friedman's mysteries in the future, but they were fine to pass the time. I'm much more interested in Friedman the country-singer-turned-politician-turned-author. If there's a bio out there, I'll read it.
In the meantime, the best part about this book was carrying it on the bus and conveniently accidentally covering all the words in the title except "The Kinky" with my cell phone and having those poor Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University boys fall over themselves trying to see what I was really reading.
August 15, 2020
Three excellent crime novels in one volume. Well, two excellent crime novels and one quite good one but the quite good one is the first novel Kinky Friedman wrote in this ongoing series and although it is weaker than the others it does contribute to the overall context in which the other two exist, so it justifies itself more than adequately in my view.
A Case of Lone Star is the first novel in this omnibus and this was my introduction to the one liners and dry observational comedy of Kinky Friedman's prose style. I quickly learned that the plots are not important in these books. Each novel is a repository of superb one liners and is suffused with a specific noirish ambience that is neither bleak nor sunny but entertaining and offbeat. The action takes place in the New York of the mid to late 1980s but there are memories, allusions, references to other times and places, usually the more southern states of the USA and especially Texas. In this novel the focus is on country music and country music turns out to be indirectly responsible for the crimes that are committed.
Greenwich Killing Time is the second in the omnibus but was the first to be written and this is the weakest of the three. The jokes are less well crafted (but still good) and the characters are a little less quirky and meaningful. It was a wise editorial decision not to position this novel first in the omnibus. When the Cat's Away is the third and perhaps the best of the three. Once again, the plot makes no real sense. There are many red herrings and no real effort is made to integrate them into the main story. But none of this matters. The atmosphere is rendered perfectly and the general feeling of hard-bitten cynicism (with a deep underlying compassion) works well, though it must be stressed that the humour in this book is more savage than in the other two and I winced more than once at some of the pejorative terms used by a few (or even most) of the characters.
A Case of Lone Star is the first novel in this omnibus and this was my introduction to the one liners and dry observational comedy of Kinky Friedman's prose style. I quickly learned that the plots are not important in these books. Each novel is a repository of superb one liners and is suffused with a specific noirish ambience that is neither bleak nor sunny but entertaining and offbeat. The action takes place in the New York of the mid to late 1980s but there are memories, allusions, references to other times and places, usually the more southern states of the USA and especially Texas. In this novel the focus is on country music and country music turns out to be indirectly responsible for the crimes that are committed.
Greenwich Killing Time is the second in the omnibus but was the first to be written and this is the weakest of the three. The jokes are less well crafted (but still good) and the characters are a little less quirky and meaningful. It was a wise editorial decision not to position this novel first in the omnibus. When the Cat's Away is the third and perhaps the best of the three. Once again, the plot makes no real sense. There are many red herrings and no real effort is made to integrate them into the main story. But none of this matters. The atmosphere is rendered perfectly and the general feeling of hard-bitten cynicism (with a deep underlying compassion) works well, though it must be stressed that the humour in this book is more savage than in the other two and I winced more than once at some of the pejorative terms used by a few (or even most) of the characters.
July 20, 2017
Kinky Friedman and his Village irregulars are always good for a laugh.
August 26, 2019
Not much in the way of plot but the writing is hilarious and full of excellent one-liners.
January 27, 2020
Just hilarious! What a wisecrack.
December 14, 2020
good light reading; clever author with a vivid imagination; each story stands on its own but the narrative is also worthwhile
August 25, 2020
Raymond Chandler wearing a Stetson and eating gefilte fisch - neat concept, cleverly executed.
Mr Friedman has a way with words and his writing is filled with decent (and indecent) wisecracks. He doesn't fictionalise himself too much as the central character, even referring to his own shows and records while presenting himself now as a down-at-heel private eye in New York City and does flesh out his supporting cast. The stories are taut and punchy, and the dialogue has its moments, but the dénouements of the three short novels here are rather similar, and his writing is of its time, so thirty years on a reader might find his attitudes to race and sexuality less than enlightened.
However, all three stories were enjoyable reads so its a middling mark from me.
Mr Friedman has a way with words and his writing is filled with decent (and indecent) wisecracks. He doesn't fictionalise himself too much as the central character, even referring to his own shows and records while presenting himself now as a down-at-heel private eye in New York City and does flesh out his supporting cast. The stories are taut and punchy, and the dialogue has its moments, but the dénouements of the three short novels here are rather similar, and his writing is of its time, so thirty years on a reader might find his attitudes to race and sexuality less than enlightened.
However, all three stories were enjoyable reads so its a middling mark from me.
Currently reading
February 17, 2010they're trash but I love them... I'm talking about books here of course, not the women in my life...
May 4, 2012
A fun book. Like James Bond, cool plots but funny too.
July 24, 2013
Loved them so much have bought the next 6. Easy to read and you'll laugh out loud in places.
Read
August 22, 2013Carbon: read A Case of Lone Star 145 of 145 pages, read Greenwhich 312 pages, Cats Arena 468 pages of 468.
April 15, 2015
Give Kinky a go he's light and easy and fun
Read
April 7, 2017I once saw Kinky Friedman live in Bristol. His jokes were sharp and hilarious, and the whole 'Jewish Crimefighting Cowboy' schtick was brilliant. Then I went to see him a year later at a different venue, also in Bristol. The act was exactly the same. Every joke, every line. And I loved it again!
I find his books to be like this. He's a bit of a one trick pony, but when the trick is this good, I'll keep reading.
I find his books to be like this. He's a bit of a one trick pony, but when the trick is this good, I'll keep reading.
Want to read
December 25, 2018Synopsis: Friedman, lead singer of a country and western band, the Texas Jewboys, has written detective stories featuring himself. Here are three!
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews