Armadillos and Old Lace

the Kinkster Is Back And In Top Supersleuth Form. In Armadillos & Old Lace, The Hip, Witty, Cosmically Cryptic Poet Returns To Once Again Ponder The Imponderables And Disentangle A Mystery Or Two, And This Time He's Temporarily Forsaking The Mean Streets Of Manhattan For His Old Texas Stomping Grounds. When Kinky Friedman Decides It's Time To Take A Break From Big-city Murder And Mayhem, He Transports Himself And His Cat To Texas To Get Back To His Roots, To Commune With His Dad, To Play With His Pet Armadillo, And To Blow The City Soot From His Fevered Brain. Kinky Arrives At His Family's Combination Ranch/summer Camp For Boys And Girls To Find Urgent Messages From Pat Knox, The Local Justice Of The Peace (who Got That Job By Beating Kinky In What Clearly Had To Have Been A Rigged Election). It Seems Her Honor Is A Tad Concerned That Little Old Ladies In The Area Are Dropping Dead At An Alarming Rate. Fearing Something Foul Is Afoot, She Persuades Kinky To Undertake Some Sleuthing. Undaunted By The Thought Of Running Up Against The Toughest Lady Sheriff In Texas And Only A Little Perturbed By A Mass Of Swarming Bees, The Kinkster Takes Off In His Talking Car To Put The Pieces Of The Puzzle Together. Several Bunches Of Yellow Roses And A Faded Photograph Taken Many Years Ago Of Ten Pretty Girls Dressed In White And Ready For The Cotillion Are Just The Clues Kinky Needs To Finally Unravel A Devious Scheme Of Revenge For Personal Wrongs And Social Snobbery. A Colorful Texas Story Of The Cosmic Variety, Armadillos & Old Lace Is Kinky Friedman At His Dead-level Best, Mixing His Irresistible Irreverence With A Really Great Mystery. publishers Weekly droll Yuks And The Irascible Charm Of The Kinkster Drive This Seventh In A Fine Series Starring The Smart-mouthed New York City Pi Whom The Author Has Named After Himself. Kinky Doesn't Work Much; Mostly He Fires Up Stogies, Tosses Back Shots Of Jameson, Recalls The High And Low Points Of His Career As A Country Singer And Traces The Occasional Weird Case. Here He Heads Home To The Texas Hill Country, Where His Parents Run A Camp For Spunky Seven-year-olds And Where A Crew Of Old Ladies Are Dying On Their 76th Birthdays. One Oldster Is Found Dead With Her Lips Sewn Shut. Kinky, Investigating, Discovers That The Victims' Pasts All Share A Link To An Exclusionary Club For Southern Ladies. Fortunately, Kinky Is Also Occupied With Romancing A Camp Counselor, Hunting For His Missing Cat And Rediscovering His Childhood Self (as If That Had Ever Been Abandoned). At His Best Just Mouthing Off, Kinky Is A Crime Original, A Wayward Spirit Whose Adventures Offer Plot Substance And Surprises Neatly Packaged With Deft, Jokey Prose. (sept.)# Kinky Friedman is living proof that you can be a Texan, New Yorker, a Jewish country-and-western singer, and an amateur detective all at the same time It was my last night in New York before saddling up the cat, grabbing my old guitar, and heading back to the family ranch in Texas for the summer.