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Kinky Friedman #13
The Mile High Club
“There is only one Kinky Friedman.” — St. Petersburg Times
Raunchy, offbeat, and hilarious, The Mile High Club, complete with a surprise ending, is Kinky at his considerable best.
It all starts with a casual flirtation, two people on a flight from Dallas to New York. She’s gorgeous and mysterious; he’s a private detective. When the plane lands, the detective—our hero, Kinky—finds he’s been left holding the bag, literally. The woman, having asked the Kinkster to watch her luggage while she visits the can, has taken a powder and somehow vanished. Mystery Woman does turn up again, but not before Kinky has claimed the interest of an array of suits from the State Department, been party to a thwarted kidnap attempt by Arab terrorists, and found a dead Israeli agent parked on the toilet of his downtown Manhattan loft.
Employing the able-bodied assistance of his usual sidekicks, the Village Irregulars, Kinky eventually gets to the bottom of all the comings and goings of the many visitors to his loft, including two late-night visits by the mysterious and suddenly affectionate woman from the plane and one not-so-late-night visit by her angry brother.
Raunchy, offbeat, and hilarious, The Mile High Club, complete with a surprise ending, is Kinky at his considerable best.
It all starts with a casual flirtation, two people on a flight from Dallas to New York. She’s gorgeous and mysterious; he’s a private detective. When the plane lands, the detective—our hero, Kinky—finds he’s been left holding the bag, literally. The woman, having asked the Kinkster to watch her luggage while she visits the can, has taken a powder and somehow vanished. Mystery Woman does turn up again, but not before Kinky has claimed the interest of an array of suits from the State Department, been party to a thwarted kidnap attempt by Arab terrorists, and found a dead Israeli agent parked on the toilet of his downtown Manhattan loft.
Employing the able-bodied assistance of his usual sidekicks, the Village Irregulars, Kinky eventually gets to the bottom of all the comings and goings of the many visitors to his loft, including two late-night visits by the mysterious and suddenly affectionate woman from the plane and one not-so-late-night visit by her angry brother.
224 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2000
8 people are currently reading
175 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 - 30 of 42 reviews
November 3, 2021
I love Kinky Friedman's style. Sadly, this book is too much style and not enough substance. The ending is almost an afterthought and although the usual cast of characters is present, they also seem to be there just because...
January 28, 2009
Kinky, or the Kingster, as he likes to call himself is a Jewish detective who likes cats. But he only changes the litter box every seven years whether it needs it or not. So the cat will often find other places to take care of things, a situation that Kink's friends find unsettling to say the least. He finds that as cat scats age they become dried out and stiff enabling them to be collected by stabbing with a boning knife.
You're probably beginning to get the idea that this book has some humorous overtones. That's putting it mildly. I suspect the family might have been wondering about my sanity watching me mow the lawn laughing out loud listening to this hysterical romp.
The whole thing starts when Kinky gets stuck with a pink little valise left in the airplane seat next to him by a very attractive woman. She leaves for the lavatory just before landing and to Kinky's consternation never is seen leaving the plane. He collects the little bag and the woman's suitcase assuming that she will call him using his business card that he had given her during the course of their conversation.
It turns out that many people are interested in the valise. He can't bear not to peak inside and finds several illegal passports that were obviously intended to be used by persons of less than high moral character, e.g. international terrorists. Soon the State Department, the Mossad, and Arab terrorists are all trying to find the passports. They know they are in his apartment because, as Kinky and his friends discover, a miniature transmitter was hidden in one of them. Kinky had decided to hide them in the only place he know no one would look: his cat's little box. That leads to all sorts of scatological remarks.
The book is filled with all sorts of double-entendres and puns. His toilet is called the dumper but using it for its intended purpose is "taking a Nixon." And when the terrorists delivery the cutoff finger of someone as a warning all sorts of "let the fingers do the walking" jokes permeate the chapter.
It's really a lot of fun, and the audio version is read by one of my favorite readers, Dick Hill.
You're probably beginning to get the idea that this book has some humorous overtones. That's putting it mildly. I suspect the family might have been wondering about my sanity watching me mow the lawn laughing out loud listening to this hysterical romp.
The whole thing starts when Kinky gets stuck with a pink little valise left in the airplane seat next to him by a very attractive woman. She leaves for the lavatory just before landing and to Kinky's consternation never is seen leaving the plane. He collects the little bag and the woman's suitcase assuming that she will call him using his business card that he had given her during the course of their conversation.
It turns out that many people are interested in the valise. He can't bear not to peak inside and finds several illegal passports that were obviously intended to be used by persons of less than high moral character, e.g. international terrorists. Soon the State Department, the Mossad, and Arab terrorists are all trying to find the passports. They know they are in his apartment because, as Kinky and his friends discover, a miniature transmitter was hidden in one of them. Kinky had decided to hide them in the only place he know no one would look: his cat's little box. That leads to all sorts of scatological remarks.
The book is filled with all sorts of double-entendres and puns. His toilet is called the dumper but using it for its intended purpose is "taking a Nixon." And when the terrorists delivery the cutoff finger of someone as a warning all sorts of "let the fingers do the walking" jokes permeate the chapter.
It's really a lot of fun, and the audio version is read by one of my favorite readers, Dick Hill.
August 27, 2010
Just started my 1st Kinky Friedman...I've always enjoyed his interviews with Imus and remember his band from the 70s "The Texas jewboys", so I picked this one up for a quick read...quirky, raunchy and funny...the plot is less impoertant than the stream of conscienceness observations of everyday life... a mysterious woman, terrorists and rhe Kinkster's band of friends move the plot, but so what!!!OK, fun read!
February 21, 2019
"If it's one thing I hate," I said to the beautiful woman on the airplane, "it's meeting a beautiful woman on an airplane."
"How terrible for you," she said, briefly looking up from her FAA-mandated copy of John Grisham's latest novel.
If that didn't make you laugh, you probably won't like this book.
"How terrible for you," she said, briefly looking up from her FAA-mandated copy of John Grisham's latest novel.
If that didn't make you laugh, you probably won't like this book.
September 14, 2022
Kinky! I stumbled across this series in a second-hand store, and it is great fun. For all the talk and jokes about sex, little does actually happen and none of it is described in detail, so it's actually quite safe.
The story itself is okay, the ending is way too open for my taste, but that does not seem to be the main point here.
The story itself is okay, the ending is way too open for my taste, but that does not seem to be the main point here.
May 2, 2022
read on a flight which I found fitting
clocked the ending early not necessarily because it was predictable but because it was embedded in my mind as kinky could be my potential predecessor if I threw in the painterly trowel and went with writing
clocked the ending early not necessarily because it was predictable but because it was embedded in my mind as kinky could be my potential predecessor if I threw in the painterly trowel and went with writing
November 22, 2020
A little detective novel like a warm bath. Nothing too exciting, but highly entertaining and fun.
December 23, 2020
Despite an interesting plot, I found the male character quite annoying and stopped reading half way through it. I guess I'd never know where Khadija went.
June 8, 2021
Bit weird this one. That's by KF standards.
Without spoilers it doesn't really make a lot of sense beyond being a way to set up the punchline.
Enjoyable enough if you like KF.
Without spoilers it doesn't really make a lot of sense beyond being a way to set up the punchline.
Enjoyable enough if you like KF.
November 16, 2022
I can't stand cigars, cat turds, or the term "mile high club", yet for some reason I can't fathom I loved this shaggy dog bs...
September 1, 2024
I'm just such a Kinkster fan. This one has lots to delight and offend. God, I miss him.
May 25, 2008
My dad is a big Kinky Friedman fan, but I just don't take to his voice. I forget which other Kinky Friedman book I've read, but I remember not particularly caring for it. His voice is too self-conciously quirky and stream of conciousness for my taste, and keep in mind that I really like Tom Robbins, so I feel like that's saying something. I guess I'm supposed to find his characters zany enough to ignore the barely existant plot and the non-existant resolution. But I'm not interested in any of the characters. There's an occasional funny line, but it's a ratio of five bad jokes to one good. To top it all off, the whole pointless book ends up being a set up for a lame "but she's a MAN!" reveal that is not funny, clever nor even certain. Authors who prefer to work while high should not work in a genre that demands plot.
February 3, 2017
Appropriate since the current news is about immigrant bans and a ban on all satire...I love all the Kinky Friedman's books and end up laughing uncontrollably at just about every page. I admire his existential cat which is also one of his constant companions and the his cronies the Village Irregulars each one with funny, witty dialogue. Friedman is poetic, philosophical and hilarious all at the same time. I would recommend that if you have not read a Kinky Friedman mystery yet that you start with "When the cat's away" and "Greenwich Killing Time" first.
November 1, 2010
I think this quote gives the potential reader a pretty good idea whether or not he'll enjoy the book:
"If you hear your own voice it may remind you that you're the most important person in the world who can call you from an airport because if you don't die trying to get out of your own way you'll never be who you always wanted to be when you grow up."
Apparently I never did enough drugs to appreciate this sort of literary ... self-stimulation.
"If you hear your own voice it may remind you that you're the most important person in the world who can call you from an airport because if you don't die trying to get out of your own way you'll never be who you always wanted to be when you grow up."
Apparently I never did enough drugs to appreciate this sort of literary ... self-stimulation.
November 27, 2008
Uggh. I thought I might be listening to Palin's brother/uncle/lover with his folksy doof-speak. Mickey Spillane also comes to mind and there was a reason I never read any of that. Mildly entertaining at best and I probably would give it a 3.5/10 if the scale were out of 10. The "twist" at the end made it memorable, but I won't read any more of his work.
November 9, 2012
Keeping true to his name Kinky Friedman explores the delicate balance between sex and terrorism. Ever the southern gentleman Kinky takes the reader on a wild ride wondering what will explode first the terrorist plot or a sexually frustrated Texas jewboy set adrift in the eternal never never land that is New York.
October 23, 2013
This is maybe the third Kinky mystery I've read and I've enjoyed each one. They are sort of a novelty and often predictable in hold the "mysteries" unfold, but Kinky is an incredibly gifted writer who peppers his prose with in-jokes aplenty and allusions abound. And nothing is better than his characterization of bon vivant/biographer Ratso Sloman.
September 3, 2008
I'm not normally a big fan of detective novels, but there's something about the way Kinky writes, the way he's developed his characters...A fallible hero is the best kind. If I were a Texan, I'd have voted for him.
November 30, 2008
I listened to this book on audio. The narrator was wonderful, and I am sure that added much to my enjoyment of the book. The author has a quirky sense of humour which always appeals to me. I am definitely going to check out some of his other books.
January 1, 2009
Kinky Friedman is always a rollicking good time! We listened to this audio book during our travels over Christmas and it kept us laughing all the way. When you quote parts of the book to each other days and weeks after you read it, you know it was good!
August 14, 2016
Not my style of book. The wittyness felt forced. I developed no sense of attachment to any of the characters. Can't think of anyone I would recommend this book too. On the upside, the book is pretty short and small chapters so it was an easy read.
July 19, 2007
One of Kinky's best
October 7, 2007
Ok. . .not great literature, but funny and raunchy. A little repetitive and really little more than a projection of Kinky's personality, but I still enjoyed it.
April 22, 2008
thanks to Deborah, I became a Kinky fan... though I just can't bring myself to watch him on Bill O'Lielly on Fox News...
September 3, 2008
another good book by Kinky....short read.
May 25, 2011
Silly fun.
June 8, 2011
Irreverent. Definitely not politically correct. Easy, quick read.
July 5, 2012
Own First Edition signed copy
January 7, 2013
More like 3.5 stars. I like the style of writing. Not too serious. A fun, short read. Great for a weekend.
July 14, 2014
This was my first Kinky Friedman book - very funny stuff.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews