Spanking Watson

Kinky desperately wants to silence the thumping lesbian dance class pounding on his ceiling and his head. But a fake threatening note unexpectedly leads to a real-life murderer, and an inconveniently Watson-less Kinky has to stop the killer. Which of the Village Irregulars will win the Watson Prize? Which member of the lesbian dance class is next to die? Ratso is in pink tights and researching the "world's greatest farting musician", Steve Rambam is bugging a loft, Mike McGovern and Mick Brennan are pretending to be drunken British reporters…and it's only the beginning of the book.

About "Spanking Watson", from the Author's Introduction:  "Spanking Watson begins with a threatening note received by Winnie Katz, the instructor of the lesbian dance class in the loft above the Kinkster. The Kinkster soon takes up the case, and tries to determine who indeed sent the threatening note. This, of course, is not terribly difficult for the Kinkster. He wrote it himself. The idea was to put the Village Irregulars through their paces in a simple, fabricated, whimsical case, to determine which of them had the skills and acumen and loyalty to become the best Doctor Watson. However, as Joseph Heller once remarked, 'Nothing succeeds as planned.' Soon enough, sure as life imitates art, the evil reality of the wicked world began to imitate my little game. Then the “face of dead Vaudeville” showed up and scared the crap out of everybody. I think Spanking Watson is a particularly funny book. Re-reading it provoked me to laugh for the first time in several hundred years. …"

Vandam Press is proud to be able to make this remarkable novel available again to Kinky’s old friends and to those readers worldwide who are discovering Kinky Friedman for the first time.

" Kinky can be poetic, hilarious, philosophical or crude -- all within one paragraph…In the spirit of Hunter S. Thompson or Jack Kerouac." (Tribune & Times)

     "Superbly silly…From beginning to end, the Kinkster keeps the gags coming fast and thick. … The world's funniest, bawdiest and most politically incorrect music singer turned mystery writer." (New York Times Book Review)

"The Kinkster is a catcher, not in the rye, but in the sagebrush, and  that's what is truly appealing about him and his work." (Los Angeles Times)

    "Two Thumbs Up, and pardon the Barbecue smears." (Texas Monthly)

     "Kinky is a hip hybrid of Groucho Marx and Sam Spade." (Chicago Tribune)

     "Kinky's the best whodunit writer to come along since Dashiell What's-His-Name." (Willie Nelson)

     "A true Texas legend." (former President George W. Bush)

     "Dear Kinky, I have now read all of your books. More, please. I really need the laughs." (former President Bill Clinton)

     "Friedman cinches his credentials as a great Southern storyteller. he combines the deductive moxie of a Chandler or a Hammett with the boisterous irreverence of a stream-of-consciousness raconteur, and the blend is a pungent delight." (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

     "Author Richard Friedman was given the nickname Kinky for his curly 'Jewish natural' hairdo, not for his sexual proclivities. But it might just as well been for his writing style, which is full of twists and turns and Friedman's particular brand of skewed humor." (USA Today)]

     "Brash, crass and colorful." (Houston Chronicle)

     "Smart, funny and tough." (Robert B. Parker, author)

     "The Sam Spade of South Texas. Only soft boiled. And hipper. And funnier." (Sunday Mail)