Kinky Friedman is the author of the new mystery novel, Spanking Watson. Kinky Friedman is also the main character of this book. Kinky the writer has Kinky the book character solving a mystery of sorts. Spanking Watson was published by Simon & Schuster and copyrighted in 1999.
For those of you who've never read a Friedman book, I'll give you some background. Kinky is a sometime Jewish country-western singer. He is also an amateur detective. Kinky plays Sherlock Holmes to a small group he calls the Village Irregulars. Each one of them is a Watson to Kinky in some way.
In this story Kinky is having trouble with his upstairs neighbor. Kinky lives in a loft over on Vandam Street. His upstairs neighbor is Winnie Katz and she runs a lesbian dance class from her loft. Kinky has never got along very well with Winnie. It might have had something to do with a onetime liaison with Kinky to find out if she might like men. Now Kinky has parts of his ceiling falling down due to the participants of Winnie's classes.
Kinky has a couple of workers come over to repair the damage. They work for Joe the Hyena, a mobster whose daughter's life was once saved by Kinky a few years before. Only upon talking to Vinnie and Gepetto, Kinky finds that Joe the Hyena never did have a daughter. What? Right away there's a mystery brewing.
Then Kinky scripts a note to Winnie, making an anonymous threat. He ends up leaving it on his desk and the note is found by his friend Ratso. Kinky makes up a story about the note, saying that Winnie is being threatened. Right away this turns into a case for the Village Irregulars.
Kinky recruits various members of the Irregulars to check out this threat. From the new reporter McGovern to the real deal P.I. Rambam, each of Kinky's friends lend a hand at finding who is threatening Winnie Katz.
Somewhere in the middle of the story, the threat becomes real. Someone actually goes to Winnie's loft and threatens her. Then the case and the chase are actually for real.
How the mystery is solved is pure Kinky Friedman. There's always a twist around the bend and a laugh at every other page turn.