SPANKING WATSON

Since he already shares so many of the hallmarks of that other Sherlock Holmes—drug use, sexual confusion, and his own Village Irregulars—why shouldn’t Kinky Friedman, the Sherlock of Vandam Street, have his own Dr. Watson? And what better occasion to audition potential Watsons from among the Irregulars than the death threats someone’s scribbled to Winnie Katz, the man-hating lesbian dancer instructor upstairs? So p.i. Steve Rambam bugs Winnie’s apartment to get more info; reporter McGovern and photographer Mick Brennan pretend to be with the Times of London to interview her; upstairs neighbor Stephanie Dupont goes undercover as a new dance student; so does Ratso Sloman, disguising himself as Barney Frank supporter Roscoe Figbiter to take Winnie’s friends out for pizza. What none of the Watsonabes knows is that the threatening note was written by the Kinkster himself, smashed, stoned, and furious at the plaster the constant twinkle-toes above have shaken loose from his ceiling and sent falling on his head. But if the whole cockeyed caravan is based on nothing more than Kinky’s prank, why is somebody in a Fred Flintstone mask breaking into Winnie’s apartment to threaten her for real? And can Kinky rouse himself from his reveries of legendary professional gas-passer Le Petomaine (1857—1945) and lopsided conversations with his cat to solve the mystery? Out of all Kinky’s dozen cases (Blast from the Past, 1998, etc.), this is the first one in which the plot doesn’t interrupt the flow of laugh-out-loud jokes, because the whole plot is one big joke. Solid gold for fans, and the only Kinky adventure non-fans will ever need.