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Kinky Friedman #9
The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover
"DEAR KINKY: I HAVE NOW READ ALL YOUR BOOKS. MORE PLEASE. I REALLY NEED THE LAUGHS."
--Bill Clinton
A beautiful woman, a missing husband, and a private eye with eyes for his comely client. It's the classic hardboiled-mystery setup. But in the grip of Kinky Friedman, expect one of the wildest, wackiest, and weirdest rides of your life!
"A novel to be read for the sheer joy of it."
--The Baltimore Sun
--Bill Clinton
A beautiful woman, a missing husband, and a private eye with eyes for his comely client. It's the classic hardboiled-mystery setup. But in the grip of Kinky Friedman, expect one of the wildest, wackiest, and weirdest rides of your life!
"A novel to be read for the sheer joy of it."
--The Baltimore Sun
240 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1996
8 people are currently reading
199 people want to read
About the author
Kinky Friedman
69 books289 followersRichard S. "Kinky" Friedman is an American singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, politician and former columnist for Texas Monthly who styles himself in the mold of popular American satirists Will Rogers and Mark Twain. He was one of two independent candidates in the 2006 election for the office of Governor of Texas. Receiving 12.6% of the vote, Friedman placed fourth in the six-person race.
Friedman was born in Chicago to Jewish parents, Dr. S. Thomas Friedman and his wife Minnie (Samet) Friedman. The family moved to a ranch in central Texas a few years later. Friedman had an early interest in both music and chess, and was chosen at age 7 as one of 50 local players to challenge U.S. grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky to simultaneous matches in Houston. Reshevsky won all 50 matches, but Friedman was by far the youngest competitor.
Friedman graduated from Austin High School in Austin, Texas in 1962 and earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin in 1966, majoring in Psychology. He took part in the Plan II Honors program and was a member of the Tau Delta Phi fraternity. During his freshman year, Chinga Chavin gave Friedman the nickname "Kinky" because of his curly hair.
Friedman served two years in the United States Peace Corps, teaching on Borneo in Malaysia with John Gross. During his service in the Peace Corps, he met future Texas Jewboy road manager Dylan Ferrero, with whom he still works today. Friedman lives at Echo Hill Ranch, his family's summer camp near Kerrville, Texas. He founded Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch, also located near Kerrville, whose mission is to care for stray, abused and aging animals; more than 1,000 dogs have been saved from animal euthanasia.
Series:
* Kinky Friedman Mystery
Friedman was born in Chicago to Jewish parents, Dr. S. Thomas Friedman and his wife Minnie (Samet) Friedman. The family moved to a ranch in central Texas a few years later. Friedman had an early interest in both music and chess, and was chosen at age 7 as one of 50 local players to challenge U.S. grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky to simultaneous matches in Houston. Reshevsky won all 50 matches, but Friedman was by far the youngest competitor.
Friedman graduated from Austin High School in Austin, Texas in 1962 and earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin in 1966, majoring in Psychology. He took part in the Plan II Honors program and was a member of the Tau Delta Phi fraternity. During his freshman year, Chinga Chavin gave Friedman the nickname "Kinky" because of his curly hair.
Friedman served two years in the United States Peace Corps, teaching on Borneo in Malaysia with John Gross. During his service in the Peace Corps, he met future Texas Jewboy road manager Dylan Ferrero, with whom he still works today. Friedman lives at Echo Hill Ranch, his family's summer camp near Kerrville, Texas. He founded Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch, also located near Kerrville, whose mission is to care for stray, abused and aging animals; more than 1,000 dogs have been saved from animal euthanasia.
Series:
* Kinky Friedman Mystery
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
March 15, 2020
A hoot. My proper review is here: http://patricksherriff.com/2020/03/15...
November 6, 2021
I have enjoyed Kinky Friedman’s music for years but The Love Song Of J. Edgar Hoover is the first of his novels that I have read. I enjoyed this, too.
It features a version of Kinky Friedman himself in a sort of modern pastiche of hard-boiled detective fiction of the 30s and 40s, with added comic dialogue and Kinky’s musings, conversations (one way) with his cat and so on. It begins in the classic way with a cool, beautiful blonde coming to Kinky’s agency asking him to find her husband. It then gets progressively more strange and frankly bonkers as odd events happen, people try to kill him (or do they?) and a possible trail to a man called Leaning Jesus and thence to Al Capone begins to emerge. It’s pretty crazy, but it does hang together and I became rather involved with the story.
It does start pretty slowly and rather clumsily, I thought, but it picked up very nicely. There’s a good balance of plot, action and Kinky’s reflections on all manner of things, which are amusing, often shrewd and deceptively erudite in places. I thought it was great fun and I’ll certainly be trying more in the series. Be prepared for a slightly stodgy start, but I can recommend this as a very entertaining read.
It features a version of Kinky Friedman himself in a sort of modern pastiche of hard-boiled detective fiction of the 30s and 40s, with added comic dialogue and Kinky’s musings, conversations (one way) with his cat and so on. It begins in the classic way with a cool, beautiful blonde coming to Kinky’s agency asking him to find her husband. It then gets progressively more strange and frankly bonkers as odd events happen, people try to kill him (or do they?) and a possible trail to a man called Leaning Jesus and thence to Al Capone begins to emerge. It’s pretty crazy, but it does hang together and I became rather involved with the story.
It does start pretty slowly and rather clumsily, I thought, but it picked up very nicely. There’s a good balance of plot, action and Kinky’s reflections on all manner of things, which are amusing, often shrewd and deceptively erudite in places. I thought it was great fun and I’ll certainly be trying more in the series. Be prepared for a slightly stodgy start, but I can recommend this as a very entertaining read.
March 1, 2015
Really 2 and 1/2 stars. A bit more serious in tone than the previous books I've read in this series. For alot of the book, Kinky is on his own and just stating his own thoughts about things. I think he's better with his wacky friends around him to bounce wise-cracks off of. The second half of the book is better, when Rambam gets back in town and helps him solve the case. The case could've been interesting, but kind of fizzles out in the end. If you haven't read any books in this series, don't start with this one. There are others that are much more enjoyable. An OK read, but nothing special.
October 10, 2018
3 1/2 stars. Oh how I missed the ceramic Sherlock Holmes head full of cigars, the bull horn filled with Jameson and the lesbian dance class above Kinky's loft in New York. Always get 3 or 4 good laughs when reading one of Friedman's books.
January 15, 2008
I'm giving the Kinky Friedman books which I'm selecting five stars each, because their titles are so funny.
I'll go so far as to explain this particular title. J. Edgar Hoover, of course, was head of the FBI from its inception until his death in 1972 or so. He was ubiquitous. Every American recognized him. He had a sullen face and disturbing hair with no part, combed back with greasy kid stuff over a dome which held the secrets of the good and the bad alike. T. S. Eliot wrote a poem, famous in the mid-twentieth century (and not really famous anymore) called "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
So the title of this book cracks me up.
I'll go so far as to explain this particular title. J. Edgar Hoover, of course, was head of the FBI from its inception until his death in 1972 or so. He was ubiquitous. Every American recognized him. He had a sullen face and disturbing hair with no part, combed back with greasy kid stuff over a dome which held the secrets of the good and the bad alike. T. S. Eliot wrote a poem, famous in the mid-twentieth century (and not really famous anymore) called "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
So the title of this book cracks me up.
September 7, 2014
My first Kinky Friedman book, and I was expecting it to be even weirder than it was, but it still didn't disappoint.
Read
May 22, 2023No available review--but I have been kissed by Kinky!
May 27, 2013
If you like infantile, vulgar, cheap-shot, left-wing, sniggering, woman-objectifying, whitetrashculture, adolescent, near-the-edge-gay glomping, 60s radical leftover, scatological, cigar chomping, male-man humor from sexagenarian Texan, Jewish country singer (Did I leave anything out? Oh he worked for Willie Nelson running for governor, and tried it himself too), this book is for you. You get references to schoolboy celebs from the 50s: Big John and Sparky(radio), Captain Midnight(B&W TV); a quick reference to Ann Richards, masturbation, and the texture of cheap, grimy new York apartment living. In his unconscious stream of babble you get a pearl in a pile, every so often. And he solves the mystery after duly (for a detective) getting knocked out, shot and messed with by a femme fatale client. What a book!
October 7, 2007
Only Kinky Friedman could write a book featuring F.B.I. agents dressed as aliens. Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover is the classic American detective novel stood flat on its head. There's a reason Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22 (quite possibly the funniest and most profound work of Western Literature), praises Friedman. Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover reads like a slightly quirkier Raymond Chandler story, and it is hard to put down and harder still to not enjoy.
NC
NC
April 2, 2020
A whole load of disparate and quirky story lines coalesce and collide to create a great novel. I love Kinky’s stuff. Unfortunately I read a few out of order and think I only have one left in the series overall.
September 6, 2023
I own a signed copy of this
May 10, 2012
I'm a newcomer to mystery in general (other than a brief fling through the Sherlock Holmes stories in high school), so I'm never really sure how to judge a mystery. My fallback is: did it entertain me? This is a broad enough category (I think) that it leaves lots of wiggle room for the author in terms of balance between plot, narrative, character development, and, well, everything else and lots more wiggle room for me as a reader.
So that being said, I think this book is a solid 3.5 stars. Friedman tells a good story in the sense that the plot moves along quite nicely, his descriptions are surprisingly clear (usually, sometimes things get lost in the lingo), and he does manage to successfully pull off a few surprises here and there. His humor is really where the book sometimes lags not so much because it isn't funny at times, but because it isn't funny consistently. Sometimes I found myself laughing out loud, and sometimes the jokes just fell flat (possibly because they haven't aged all that well- 1996 until now is a long time for humor to survive, so maybe he should get credit for being so readable after so long?).
The plot is (loosely) that Kinky is hired to find the missing husband of a beautiful woman, just like every other mystery ever. Unlike every other mystery ever, he keeps getting distracted by his Irish friend, who is being harassed by aliens. And, well, that's all that can be said without spoilers.
Overall, a worthwhile read, if you like mysteries and mid-90s humor (which I do). A sample passage:
Perhaps a more representative passage:
A final benefit of reading this book: Friedman clearly loves him some mystery. He references Holmes, Marple, Whimsey, Wolfe, and numerous other great fictional detectives, throwing out references and lining plot points along with the action of the referenced works. So while Friedman may not be a great place to start reading mystery (some of the references went over my head), he will undoubtedly be a delight to those who know who most of those detectives are.
So that being said, I think this book is a solid 3.5 stars. Friedman tells a good story in the sense that the plot moves along quite nicely, his descriptions are surprisingly clear (usually, sometimes things get lost in the lingo), and he does manage to successfully pull off a few surprises here and there. His humor is really where the book sometimes lags not so much because it isn't funny at times, but because it isn't funny consistently. Sometimes I found myself laughing out loud, and sometimes the jokes just fell flat (possibly because they haven't aged all that well- 1996 until now is a long time for humor to survive, so maybe he should get credit for being so readable after so long?).
The plot is (loosely) that Kinky is hired to find the missing husband of a beautiful woman, just like every other mystery ever. Unlike every other mystery ever, he keeps getting distracted by his Irish friend, who is being harassed by aliens. And, well, that's all that can be said without spoilers.
Overall, a worthwhile read, if you like mysteries and mid-90s humor (which I do). A sample passage:
On this day in 1953 Hank Williams had died somewhere along the way to a show in Canton, Ohio. Whether death is indeed preferable to doing a show in Canton, Ohio, has been a much disputed philosophical question ever since. (1)
Perhaps a more representative passage:
It is a rather tedious fact of life that most of us who are confined to the human condition spend a great deal of time wishing to be something we're not. Or someone we're not. The proctologist, scrupulously washing his hands before and after each patient, dreams of being Dr. Albert Schweitzer. The rock star, as he worries whether to leave the Porsche with valet parking, dreams of saving the rain forest. The bank teller dreams of embezzling a million dollars and moving to Costa Rica. the average Costa Rican dreams of moving to Akron, Ohio, and becoming a bank teller. The many people who lead anonymous little lives long for fame. The handful of people who've become truly trapped in the thing that fame is, invariably long for anonymity. As far as the rest of us go, we have to deal with so many a****les every day, we figure we probably should've been proctologists and at least get paid for it. (136)
A final benefit of reading this book: Friedman clearly loves him some mystery. He references Holmes, Marple, Whimsey, Wolfe, and numerous other great fictional detectives, throwing out references and lining plot points along with the action of the referenced works. So while Friedman may not be a great place to start reading mystery (some of the references went over my head), he will undoubtedly be a delight to those who know who most of those detectives are.
September 9, 2018
Another enjoyable page-turner from The Kinkster. The one-liners come thick and fast, the plot twists and turns and, beneath it all, there's some searing insights into the machinations of modern America.
March 7, 2009
I love Kinky Friedman! This one is a funny off center mystery!
enjoyed it!
enjoyed it!
January 5, 2011
This and Elvis are my 2 favorites. If you love Kinky, you'll love these. If you don't...well, you're probably not reading this.
February 9, 2011
There wasn't much challange in this book but overall it was fun to read. Kinky's wit was my main motivation to keep reading. I did find a lot of his comments amusing.
August 6, 2011
another great detective romp by the kinkster... (i gotta get me a bull-horn to drink out of) haha
October 4, 2012
Light, humorous, fun read. Looking forward to reading more of his books!
June 21, 2016
unexpected all the way to the end. a fun read, looking forward to the rest of the series!
(which I will try to read in order from here on out.)
(which I will try to read in order from here on out.)
February 3, 2025
3.5 stars rounded down. When is Goodreads getting half star ratings?
June 2, 2020
Beauty's all in the eye of the beerholder.
It feels safe to say you either like the Kinkster or you don't. If cigar smoke bothers you, you probably want to move on. But if you have a jaded sense of humor or an appreciation for irreverence in general, Friedman's books are fun to hang out with for a while (thanks to the "Friedman of Information Act"). Like all great pulp fiction, they're abundant with throw-away lines. Some of my favorites from this one are:
"I didn't know dick about art, but something was definitely wrong with this picture."
"It looked like a crack house that had seen better days."
"The weekend passed slowly, like rush-hour traffic of the mind."
What can I say? I'm a fan. I like how he doesn't just say "I walked up the street" but rather "I ankled it up Jane Street to Eighth Avenue." I like his frequent monologues delivered to a cat who, like all cats, couldn't care less. I like how taxi cab drivers are "hacks" and phones are "blowers" (and how he has two of them connected to the same switch but only ever answers the one on the left). For me, the best part of this particular adventure was when he was in the back of the limo driving through the South Side of Chicago, reflecting on his father growing up there, helping the Polish man sell vegetables to the housewives.
"The back of the limo filled up with an almost primordial cold that seemed to come from somebody else's ice age."
His world and unique thoughts about it are good to visit while they last.
"Roseglub!"
First lines:
"It was New Year's Day. I stood at the kitchen window sipping a hot, bitter espresso and gazing down at the raw, grainy, half-deserted, fog-shrouded countenance of Vandam Street. It looked a lot like I felt."
March 25, 2018
um.... I'm to all that sure how I feel about this. Maybe there's a sequence you have to read the books in? I happened to just see it and thought that's a nifty title. too many snide quirky quotes throughout the book. Kinky Friedman, a country singer turned amateur private detective happens to have a very beautiful woman show up asking him to look into her husband's disappearance. Which seems a little off from the start. Kinky also has an issue with his good friend McGovern who swears up and down he's being followed by people, especially a dead guy he knew as Leaning Jesus back in Chicago when he was just a kid. This book had it's funny moments, but as Kinky is the one telling the story, he has a snide quirky comment for everything he does. and I'm not sure why the fact he's never cleaned his cats litter box bothers me so much, maybe it's my OCD showing but it nags at me whenever he's back at home. Not too sure I will be continuing these books.
November 20, 2019
Reminded me of 'It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World' in the end. And then there was this quote: "It wasn't all that hard to understand. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose and sometimes you live in a lonely loft in February, freezing your ass off, listening to lesbians, gazing at garbage trucks, smoking cigars, drinking espresso, attempting to relate to an antisocial cat, feeling sorry for yourself and, occasionally, carrying on a rather wooden conversation with a little black puppet head who resides on top of the refrigerator and is the only one with the brains and the guts and the imagination to call this place home."
June 29, 2022
After his career as a country & western singer in the seventies, with dubious hits like 'How Can I Tell You I Love When You're Sitting On My Face' and 'They Aren't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore', Kinky Friedman reinvented himself as a writer of private eye novels. He wrote 13 of 'em, featuring himself as a far from successful detective, stumbling through his investigations. The plot to 'The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover' may be as solid as the Genoa motorway bridge, but Friedman's quips and wisecracks make it sheer joy to read.
Read
May 8, 2020This was a fun, quick read. Quirky, and slow paced. Not enough meat here to make a movie out of the story. Kinky is the main character, and he is quite a character! Narrowly escapes death in a most calm manner. The first time I'm reading his work; found it on a shelf in my office. I'll read a few more of his.
December 20, 2023
It's always fun to return to Kinky Friedman's crime world; the gritty humorous intriguing crime novels are always satisfying and makes one feel blessed to have discovered them.
That's it really, I had fun, it began to feel like the dreaded story which I'd leave unsatisfied but then, in classic Friedman style, it rescues itself and you go away smiling.
That's it really, I had fun, it began to feel like the dreaded story which I'd leave unsatisfied but then, in classic Friedman style, it rescues itself and you go away smiling.
November 29, 2018
I always enjoy Kinky's books. This story was a bit slow but his writing is always enjoyable and I love the characters. I wish I would have done a better job of reading his books in order but they are enjoyable still the same. I love is humor.
September 14, 2021
I read this book a few months ago. But I could have just finished it 5 seconds ago and I would still not be able to tell you a single thing about the plot. I’m sure there was something about J Edgar Hoover in there. And I’m sure Kinky solved the mystery just when it appeared all hope was lost.
October 5, 2021
Our gay FBI director who was once held to be paradigm of truth justice and the American way ..... well eventually he would find his way as the comedic bullseye in another rolicking adventure with adolescent potty humor, sex jokes and ode to Outlaw music ....... guilty pleasure yes.....
July 13, 2024
I’ll give this one 3. 5 stars. Maybe not the best but worth reading just for the ending. To paraphrase the Clinton quote “WE all need the laughs”. Thank goodness for the world view of writers like Friedman ( and Carl Hiaasen and Christopher Moore)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews