Product Description

Alfred Hitchcock's classic film Rear Window gets an affectionate kick in the butt in this homage from master crime writer, philosopher, and equal-opportunity offender Kinky Friedman.

It's a case of malaria versus murder when private dick extraordinaire Kinky Friedman comes down with a tropical disease, in the jungle known as New York City, and is confined to his loft on Vandam Street in lower Manhattan, a prisoner in his own home with only his cat and black puppet head as company (neither of whom are great conversationalists).

With little to do but stare out the window in between bedridden bouts of fever and hallucinations, Kinky calls on assistance from the stalwart Village Irregulars, who proceed to dish out their own uniquely skewed brand of tea and sympathy, turning the loft into a virtual Mardi Gras of confusion and drunken debauchery.

Suffering almost as much from company overload as from his fever, Kinky welcomes a rare moment of calm as he finds himself once again alone in his loft. Resuming his position at the kitchen window, he spots a pretty young woman in an apartment across the street. What he hopes might be titillating turns terrifying, however, as a man joins the woman and proceeds to attack her. Sure that he's witnessed a crime, Kinky calls in the cops, but, upon investigating his claim, they can find neither a victim nor an apartment across the street. In addition, no one else saw or heard anything that would ndicate a crime had taken place. Was it foul play or merely a fevered dream?

Convinced that their friend is about to slip off into the land of eternal slumber, the Village Irregulars increase their vigilance and in the process raise the Kinkster's irritability level to an all-time high. Not to be deterred, however, Kinky sticks to his story and is rewarded when a few days later he sees the man in the apartment again, but this time with a gun.

Outrageous, audacious, and ingeniously crafted, The Prisoner of Vandam Street is vintage Kinky: irreverent, clever, and full of the hardened philosophy and mordant wit that has earned him a vast and devoted readership. But what more would you expect from the writer The New York Times has called "The world's funniest, bawdiest, and most politically incorrect country music singer turned mystery writer"?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #810725 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780743246026
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
The irrepressible, hysterically funny Friedman sounds an uncharacteristic melancholy note in his 15th novel featuring a quasi-fictional version of the former country-western singer himself as an amateur detective. While his earlier books (Greenwich Killing Time, etc.) contained serious insights into human nature, they were mostly notable for Friedman's engaging personaâ€"cynical, humorous, free-associating and often politically incorrect. Here Friedman is hospitalized with malaria, suffering the bumbling efforts of his motley Village Irregulars to nurse him back to health. His delirium and disorientation lead him to doubt his senses when a chance glance out his window shows a woman being physically abused in an adjacent apartment on a floor that later proves to contain no apartments, in an obvious nod to Hitchcock's Rear Window. Fortunately, one of his many friends, a private investigator, gives him the benefit of the doubt and looks into the case. Still, Friedman must play a passive role, and feels even more out of touch when his PI friend does his preliminary digging on the Internet. While the punchy, acerbic writing will be familiar and pleasurable to Friedman fans, this remains an atypical effort that hopefully will be followed by a return to a less downbeat plot.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
In the sixteenth cracked caper for Friedman's eponymous sleuth, the Kinkster is laid low by latent malaria from his Peace Corps days; while enduring the casual ministrations of his rat pack, he seems to witness a woman being beaten in the adjacent building--or was it just a fever dream? Shades of Rear Window? Well, not quite. For the uninitiated, this series is rather like what might result if some hallucinogenic muse influenced Tom Robbins to pen mysteries; this time around, though, the loopy tone and gonzo yuks fail to compensate for a listless and repetitive tale that takes as its crux the rather irrelevant question of our hero's sanity. There are some delightful episodes of delirium amid the ubiquitous cat turds, but even die-hard fans will scud through these horse latitudes in hopes of more diverting antics ahead; while waiting, they might try Christopher Brookmyre, Tim Sandlin, or Jerome Charyn's Isaac Sidel series. David Wright
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Kinky Friedman lives in a little green trailer somewhere in the hills of Texas. He has four dogs, one armadillo, and one Smith Corona typewriter. According to Mr. Friedman, he is the only free man on this train.

Customer Reviews

Hilarious-Typical Kinky
While drinking at the Corner Bistro with his friend McGovern, Kinky Friedman starts shaking, mumbling and goes from hot to cold in an instant. He blacks out and comes to in a hospital. At first Kinky thinks McGovern slipped him a Mickey, but the symptoms continue. The Kinkster knows he is sick but it takes the doctor a while to figure out what is wrong with him. He suffers from a virulent form of malaria picked up when Kinky worked for the Peace Corps in Borneo.

His friends, the Village Irregulars offer to nursemaid him so the doctor discharges him with the provision that he stays in his apartment for six weeks. During one of his moments of lucidity, Kinky looks out the window and sees a man beating a woman until she starts bleeding. When he calls 911and the police go over to investigate they find an empty and unused warehouse and nobody on the second and fourth floor heard anything. Kinky is determined to prove that he is right and he uses the Village Irregulars as his eyes and ears with some very hilarious results.

Kinky Friedman is irreverent and witty as usual, insulting everyone and everything using blue humor so he doesn't sound like a racist (which he isn't). It's touching to see Kinky's misfits and society's rejects gather round in his hour of need and no one can doubt them for not believing Kinky since half the time he is hallucinating. The real star of THE PRISONER OF VANDAM STREET is the cat whose displeasure at the invasion of his territory by an occupying force is shown in a very definite way.

Harriet Klausner

Good read
This is the first book I'd read by this author and I enjoyed his kinky sense of humor. If you're feeling down, read this book and you'll feel better quickly.

More!
Reading Prisoner of Vandam Street wasn't just something to read when I couln't sleep, it was an excuse to be awake to keep reading!As often true with Kinky Friedman books, I experienced edge-of-the-chair suspence while laughing at Kinky's unique humor and both edgy and polished use of language.Being hard-of-hearing, McGovern's misunderstandings are what people get frustrated by when I make similar mistakes. Had Kinky been well, would he have noticed the battering across the street?Had Kinky been well, and had he noticed the battering across the street, and had been able to investigate without the Village Irregulars + 3, would he have been able to protect the battered?