GOD BLESS JOHN WAYNE

Before he became Ratso, flea-market Watson to Kinky Friedman's Sherlock, Larry Sloman was the adoptive son of Lilyan and Jack Sloman, late of Miami. But who was he before that? Just before Jack Sloman died, he hinted that a clue to the identity of Ratso's birth parents was lurking in a Florida safe-deposit box, and now Ratso wants Kinky (Armadillos and Old Lace, 1994, etc.) to tell him who he really is. Kinky's not eager to take the case, not only because Ratso's never paid for so much as cab fare, but because the last shamus Ratso hired for this gig has been gathered to his own fathers, and somebody is obviously trying to kill Ratso too. For the first half of this waggish yarn, both Kinkys (author and character alike) understandably avoid cluttering their reunion of the Village Irregularsformer federal investigator Rambam, photographer Mick Brennan, Irish legman McGovernwith anything resembling a plot; eventually, though, one of them remembers what they're under contract to do, and Kinky's ineffable solecisms get elbowed aside by a halfhearted mystery. Mystery fans, then, can safely skip the first half of Kinky's seventh case. The smart money, though, will start on page one and quit reading as soon as the plot kicks in.