Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover (Paperback)

Friedman's novels are the most unconventional in detective fiction. His hero is a carbon copy of himself who becomes an amateur detective after saving a woman's life during a robbery attempt at an ATM. He lives with his cat in a badly heated warehouse loft on 199B Vandam St., New York City, and surrounds himself with an unconventional set of friends like journalist Michael McGovern, who has both a drink and a chicken dish named for him, Ratso, who sometimes wears a coonskin cap complete with head and Rambam, a mercenary "wanted in states whose names begin with an I."

They're an eccentric group of friends, so when McGovern says he's seeing little green men and receives threatening phone calls from an old friend named Leaning Jesus, it's understandable why Friedman wants to avoid him, especially since he has been hired by a beautiful woman to find her missing husband. The case becomes troublesome after Friedman is caught in a narcotics raid in D.C. and a flaming limo in Chicago. His sleuthing uncovers a clue that McGovern's troubles might be connected to the missing husband.

This is not the best book in the series. Friedman seems to be going through the motions here. While first-time readers will be either enchanted or repelled by Friedman's stream-of-consciousness prose and wicked, frequently scatological wit, regular readers will sense a flagging of energy. Friedman's plots are usually simple frameworks on which he hangs his jokes, but here it becomes annoying that the story doesn't begin moving until halfway through the book. Too little is too much this time; this is one love song that strikes a sour note.

If you're still interesting in sampling Kinky's work, I would suggest his Hank Williams Jr. tribute "A Case of Lone Star," or his more recent "Roadkill," featuring Willie Nelson.

Friedman's writing style is infectious- you either like it right from the start, or it's not for you. Virtually every page has a wisecrack and witty retort, and the author throws in references to such diverse characters as Charles Dickens, Tom Bodet (of Motel 6 fame), Martin Luther King, J. Edgar Hoover and mass murderer John Wayne Gacy. No topic is off-limits. The narrator lives in a 4th floor apartment in NYC, and a lesbian dance instructor lives over him. He mentions, as he goes through the papers of a missing man, that one check stood out "like a Jew with an antfarm." Friedman pokes fun of everyone, but in a playful and witty manner that I really enjoyed.

The novel's main storyline revolved around a missing person, the husband of Kinky's client, as well as a secondary theme involving suspicious characters that seem to be following Kinky's Irish journalist friend McGovern. I am unfamiliar with the author's prior works, but I understand that many of his usual cast of characters are here, as well as the habits and style that have made his loyal fans look forward to Friedman's annual novel.

I should add a word or two about the rating, since I gave the book 4 stars yet I certainly don't think Friedman is a better novelist than say John Irving or Howard Norman, whose books I have given 3 stars. I think you have to judge a book like this in the context of his genre, and for those looking for a witty mystery novel with an occasional unexpected plot twist, interspersed with humor and biting sarcasm, I think this book ranks up there with similar novels by Carl Hiassen.