- Paperback: 1 pages
- Publisher: Atlantic Books; Reprint edition (31 Dec 1994)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0425123456
- ISBN-13: 978-0425123454
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 10.4 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,743,008 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Frequent Flyer (Masters of Crime)
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
A novel featuring the foul-mouthed Kinky Friedman, ace private eye. When mysteriously summoned to a friend's funeral, he can't help noticing that the body in the coffin is a perfect stranger. The story was first published in the 1989 anthology, "More Kinky Friedman".
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
About the Author
Kinky Friedman - commonly known to his many fans as 'The Kinkster' - first found fame as the lead singer of the country-and-western band 'The Texas Jewboys'. He is also the author of a series of highly acclaimed detective stories, featuring himself as the wise-cracking, cigar-smoking, cat-loving sleuth. He populates his novels with many of his friends and associates, portraying them (to their great delight) as villains, cheats and con-men. In the words of the great Willie Nelson, he is the 'best whodunnit writer to come along since Dashiel Whats-his-name'. Kinky Friedman lives in a trailer in the South Texas Hills with two dogs, two cats and Dilly, his pet armadillo.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Kinky Friedman is a former country and western performer and a possible future Governor of Texas. “Frequent Flyer” is his fourth book and was originally published in the US in 1989. (It first appeared in the UK as part of the compilation “More Kinky Friedman” in 1993). As usual, he has cast himself as the PI her, while some of the other characters have been named after real-life friends. As with real life, the book’s Kinky is a cigar-smoking, cat-loving, coffee-drinking, retired country and western performer. He lives in a loft on Vandam Street, in New York City, and regularly leaves the cat in charge. The less-than-talkative cat, however, refuses to answer the telephone.
The book opens with Kinky receiving a phone call from a mysterious stranger, telling him of a old friend’s death. John Morgan, the deceased in question, had served with Kinky in the Peace Corps Volunteers in Borneo. Kinky immediately makes arrangements to attend the funeral in Cleveland – which is exactly where the trouble begins. He recognises only few people at the funeral – Morgan’s parents, for example, for photos he’d seen. However, he doesn’t recognise the corpse, and – strangely – nobody else seems to have noticed that the wrong person is getting buried. On his return to Vandam Street, he receives another phone call. The caller, this time, is an Argentinean lady called Carmen. When he goes to meet her at her hotel, he discovers she’s missing – apparently kidnapped. Before long, the ingredients to the mystery include a strange old man who wears blue flowers in lapel, some photos taken in the jungle, the 88 Leasing Corporation (incorporated in 1946) and a white tiger with blue eyes. During the investigation, he meets a number of less than savoury bad guys – luckily, he has people like Ratso, Rambam and John McGovern to help him out.
“Frequent Flyer” has much in common with the other books by Kinky I’ve read. While it’s not what I would call a serious ‘whodunit’ – some loose ends are left dangling – it is a fast moving and easily read book. It’s also packed with superbly delivered one-liners. As an author, Kinky has been described as irreverent – though that might be putting it mildly !
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Kinky vs. the Nazis
15 Nov 2001
Format:Paperback
Frequent Flyer, Kinky Friedman's fourth novel starring himself and his outlandish New York crew, takes as its subject matter the time he spent in Borneo as a member of the peace corp as well as the lingering remnants of Nazis tucked away in jungles around the globe. Kinky has always drawn heavily from his experiences as a cat-loving country singer, but Frequent Flyer is appropriately dark and personal as it sifts through the hatred that's uncovered on each page.
Kinky receives a mysterious call to inform him that an old buddy from the peace corp days has passed away, but the open-casket funeral belies the first ominous clue in a string of them...he's never seen the corpse before in his life. Thus begins the task of finding out where the switcharoo took place and what his friend had stumbled onto before disappearing without a trace. Not to mention all of the old Nazis that keep popping up.
I didn't enjoy this addition to the Kinky saga as much as his first two (Greenwich Killing Time and A Case Of Lone Star), but it's notable for its intriguing subject matter. Plot has never been the key to a Friedman novel, anyway, as long as our hero keeps popping off life lessons like shots from his bull horn full of Jameson's. Eavesdropping on his internal dialogue regarding his past is worth the price of admission, and there are many nostalgic passages about his younger days that reveal more about the author than ever before.
It's a short book, but unfortunately it's even shorter on character development. The emphasis here is on the past and Kinky's own thoughts (he even goes to a psychiatrist!). This was probably a necessary stop along the path to developing what's become one of my favorite sleuths, but it wasn't the most enjoyable by a long shot. With all of the ruminating going on, there's not much room for developing the storyline, and I was left feeling a little underwhelmed.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
An espresso, an Epicure and Kinky - life is life
3 May 1998
Format:Paperback
Kinky Friedman was recommended to me by a fellow at a cigar lounge. He had just discovered Freidman and had devoured all his books. So as one cigar smoking Jew recommended to another cigar smoking Jew a book by a cigar smoking Jew, I bought Elvis, Jesus and Coca Cola.
The next day, I bought Frequent Flyer. Now I will buy the rest.
This story is interesting on its own - a dead man who is not, a beating and Nazis. But the key to its impact is the series of references and philosophies that intermingle within the context of the story. The world is both complex and simple - often at the same time. Kinky's stories bring this forth.
I liked Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola better. But I enjoyed Frequent Flyer a lot.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
My first "Kinky experience" was just plain fun!
3 Nov 1997
Format:Paperback
I had heard of him ever since my college days years ago. But it wasn't until I picked up Frequent Flyer in the sale bin at the store last week that I knew anything about his writing. With his unique (OK - sometimes cliche) turn of a phrase, and a collection of wonderful cameo characters, Kinky Friedman will hook you from the first chapter on. I found myself having trouble putting it down, NOT because the story was so intriguing (though it wasn't bad), but because Kinky's way of conveying a scene are so engrossing that I couldn't wait to read what he "said" next! I now look forward to my next "Kinky experience".
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
