Roadkill
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Finding himself "between cases", Kinky agrees to join his old country music pal, Willie Nelson, on tour for some much needed R&R. But there is no relaxation for Kinky following the hit-and-run killing of an Indian medicine man. Death threats, shots fired into Willie's room, an ancient Indian evil spirit and the disappearance of Willie Nelson are just the beginning.
Roadkill, a New York Times Best Seller, is "one of the most unique mysteries of the past few decades", "full of twists and turns and Friedman's particular brand of skewed humor" (USA Today), written by "the best whodunit writer to come along since Dashiell What's-His-Name." (Willie Nelson).
Vandam Press is proud to be able to make this remarkable novel available to Kinky’s old friends and to those readers worldwide who are discovering Kinky Friedman for the first time.
"Rollicking...any reader who fails to have fun probably has 'a brain the size of a small Welsh mining town' ... The world's funniest, bawdiest and most politically incorrect music singer turned mystery writer." (New York Times Book Review)
"The tenth mystery, starring Kinky as Kinky, is his best in years...". (Bookist)
"I loved Roadkill. Had to read it to make sure it wasn't a biography of me." (former President Bill Clinton)
"Kinky's the best whodunit writer to come along since Dashiell What's-His-Name." (Willie Nelson)
"A true Texas legend."(President George W. Bush)
"With Roadkill, 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. All of which are displayed in his latest mystery novel, Roadkill." (USA Today)
"As funny, sad and blasphemous as ever...another peerless cosmic paranoid fantasy." (Kirkus Reviews)
"Smart, funny and tough." (Robert B. Parker, author)
"The Sam Spade of South Texas. Only soft boiled. And hipper. And funnier." (Sunday Mail)
About "Roadkill", from the Author's Introduction: "...Roadkill stands, for all its virtues and all its faults, as a fairly accurate spiritual time capsule of Willie Nelson on the road. It is one of only two books that I’ve written that made the New York Times Best Sellers lists. This is a feat that even Joseph Heller never accomplished with Catch-22. Though Catch-22 sold millions of copies over many years and became a touchstone phrase in virtually every culture on the globe, it never made the list. This, needless to say, is indicative of a lousy system. I think that a major part of what drives Willie’s life is a Herculean effort to beat the system. Some day, of course, every one of us will do it. ...".
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Even loyal fans will probably find this 10th book (after last year's The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover) in country singer Friedman's series about a cat-loving, cigar-devouring New York City amateur detective named Kinky Friedman unsatisfying. New readers will most likely come away baffled and annoyed. The trouble starts early, as the Kinkster, after reflecting on how badly his work and social life have been faring of late, sees in his bathroom mirror a version of himself that he decides to call the Gypsy: "The face was almost mine but the eyes seemed different.... His hair was not a Hebrew natural like my own: he wore it long and dark and shiny and all wrapped up in a bright red sash." Worried about his mental health, Friedman's collection of friends, known as the Village Irregulars, throw a surprise party in his apartment. The plot doesn't begin until nearly a quarter of the way into the book when famed country singer Willie Nelson--who just might be the Gypsy's progenitor--asks for Kinky's help in a tangled but not credible or compelling case involving a dead Native American medicine man. As in all of Friedman's mysteries, there's lots of drinking, smoking, mayhem, aimless chatter and country music. The occasional charms of a real musician writing about some real people he obviously knows and admires don't redeem this uninspired performance.
