Review: The Prisoner of Vandam Street

The Prisoner of Vandam Street Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Kinky Friedman
Class/Genre: Mystery Humorous
Series: Kinky Friedman # 16
Simon & Schuster, March 2004, $24.00, 240 pp.

Amazing. Sixteen books into his writing career and the Kinkster is still an inexhaustible comedic truth-seeker with a heart of tarnished gold. In The Prisoner of Vandam Street, Kinky Friedman, the novelist, brings back Kinky Friedman, the private detective, in an adventure that has Kinky conversing with his anus licking cat and (gasp!) questioning his own sanity. For all the guffaws and witty one-liners that are offered up with his elemental mysteries, Mr. Friedman has an intellectual and almost poetic depth that really comes to the fore in this novel. Yes, its true. Kinky is deep.

Kinky sits belly up to a bar at the Corner Bistro in New York City with Mike McGovern, one of the Village Irregulars. Kinky is a little buzzed and a lot irritated with McGovern, who has developed a case of selective hearing that would try the patience of a saint.

Maybe he (McGovern) was some kind of meditational guru whod trained himself only to hear things in which he was interested. Maybe he was in touch with some form of high spirituality like a dog or cat who could detect the essence and the meaning of things without needing to hear the words. Maybe he was akin to George Bernard Shaw, a fellow Irishman, who reportedly had such native sensitivity that he could review a play without even having seen it.

Kinkys mistake, as usual, is bringing this up. But, as he and McGovern bicker, he began to feel decidedly strange. He passes out and when he comes to his first question is, Where in the hells Saint Peter?

He awakens in the horsepital with a tag team of marginally helpful friends to keep him company. The diagnosis? Malaria. And not just any malaria. Plasmodium falciparum the only truly deadly strain, according to Dr. Skinnippi.

Skinnippi is willing to release Kinky from the hospital on one condition. He must remain within the confines of his apartment in lower Manhattan for six weeks. His gaggle of goofy friends are to be his caregivers one of the biggest ironies of all time. Nonetheless, they bundle him up and take him home, where a cat turd on his pillow conveys the cats opinion on the matter.

Mike McGovern, Larry Ratso Solman (whom the cat despises, leading Ratso to think she is anti-Semitic), Mick Brennen and Aussie wild man, Piers Akerman. As Kinky lies shivering and delirious in his bed, the boys add to the already ankle-deep mess that is the Kinksters loft. They come and go at all hours, existing in a haze of Jamesons Irish Whiskey and dubious smoking materials. In a rare quiet moment, Kinky looks out his kitchen window, contemplating the world denied him in his current state (yes, much like Stewarts character in Hitchcocks Rear Window). Gazing with opera glasses over his neighborhood, his malarial unfocusment is soon focused on a warehouse across the street. Through a window on the third floor, he spies a beautiful woman. She sits looking like an island maiden, standing on the shore, longing for her sailor to return. When he does return, theres trouble. The man begins to beat her mercilessly. Kinky dials 911.

When they go to investigate, there is no sign of her. In fact, there are no apartments on the third floor. Neither the cops, nor the Village Irregulars, believe him. Hes not sure if he should believe himself. The malaria has him seeing dead people and barely able to stand. A few days later, he is once again the only witness when the mysterious man returns, this time with a gun.

The bright light at the end of Kinkys tunnel appears in the form of his friend and fellow P.I., Kent Perkins. Kent has promised to fly into New York and to be Kinkys eyes, ears and legs as he looks into the case. Kinky is counting on Kent to prove him sane to his friends and to himself.

It was similar to being a child again, I thought. Waking up in the middle of the night and maybe youd done something wrong or maybe you hadnt. You werent sure. But you could hear the adults talking in the next room. And every word they spoke seemed so important, falling like a raindrop through the long dark night of childhood onto the window of your heart.

Mr. Friedman has written a deeply moving book wrapped in shiny sarcasm and tied with a big philosophical bow. The mystery is a mystery. Both in the crime fiction sense and in the why do people make the choices they do sense. We, as readers, get to share that long dark night with Kinky. It is a pleasure and a privilege.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Jennifer Jordan

Book Review: The Prisoner of Vandam Street