"Irreverent and witty as usual"

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 911 and 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

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted February 22, 2004

Summary

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 indicate 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"?