When the Cat's Away [Hardcover]

Kinky Friedman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 1991

Originally appearing in "The Kinky Friedman Crime Club", now published as a single volume, this is the third Kinky Friedman mystery. A purloined feline from Madison Square Gardens' cat show is a tip-off to a trail of murders, drug rings and gang wars that only Kinky Friedman can follow.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nonstop one-liners, cartoon characters, pointless freneticism and a ridiculous denouement do not a mystery novel make. Country singer Kinky Friedman ( A Case of Lone Star , Greenwich Killing Time ) is back again as his own hero-narrator amateur sleuth. He sallies forth to help a friend whose tabby has vanished from a cat show at Madison Square Garden. A wildcat chase to the Roosevelt Hotel turns up only a note saying, "What's the mattercat got your tongue?" Then the body of a literary agent is discovered in the exhibition hallminus a tongueand the next victim after that is a cat-hating editor. Kinky is shot with a lion-tranquilizer dart by someone wearing a cat mask and wakes up to find a sexy woman sitting on his bed. She is Leila, a beautiful Palestinian-Colombian whose brother is a drug big shot. Kinky eventually finds himself between two warring gangs of lethal Colombians, and there's a bloody shoot-out before the unmasking of the killer. Fans of earlier Friedman mysteries may enjoy the mix of real and fictional characters, Kinky's bohemian lifestyle and some of the one-liners, but the murder solution is so sappy that it wrecks the book. Even cat-lovers will find this hard going.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Genuinely funny fiction is rare, but genuinely funny crime fiction is rarer still. All the more reason, therefore, to celebrate..." -- Sunday Times

"Sometimes he's just outrageous. Most of the time, he's outrageously funny." -- People Magazine

A hip hybrid of Groucho Marx and Sam Spade." -- Chicago Tribune --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (September 17, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517075644
• ISBN-13: 978-0517075647
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,285,581 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good but not Kinky's Best, October 2, 2000

By 

J. Mullin (Plantation, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: When the Cat's Away (Mass Market Paperback)

I am a new fan of the politically incorrect, fast-paced detective novels of Kinky Friedman, having previously read The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover. These books are an easy read, with short chapters and constant movement, and Kinky (both narrator and author) occasionally summarizes what the protagonist has learned just to help the reader keep up with the storyline in the unlikely event you become confused.

This time Kinky gets wrapped up in the case of a cat who disappeared from a cat show at New York's Madison Square Garden. This seemingly harmless case soon leads him down the path to murder, warring Columbian drug cartels, and perhaps an ancient sect of dangerous Cat worshippers who are believed by anthropologists to be in the New York/ New England area.

However, none of this really matters all that much. The joy of reading a Friedman novel is simply to come along for the ride as Kinky, his sidekick Ratso, and other "Village Irregulars" like McGovern and Rambam converge in his Greenwich Village apartment (below the ever-present Winnie Katz and her lesbian dance class) or at Carnegie Deli to piece together information and make everything turn out happily ever after. Kinky pokes fun at hockey, golf, publishers, Columbian drug lords, authors, police and virtually everyone else who enters his path with a self-deprecating humor and a knowledge of history. His numerous historical references include such diverse characters as Vincent Van Gogh and Franz Shubert. Clearly the guy has read a few books in his day before he started writing them.

Ultimately, while the novel held my interest and I read it in a single weekend, I didn't think this one was as laugh-out-loud funny as J. Edgar Hoover. Written in 1988, it was Friedman's third novel, and I suspect he was still polishing his style. However, fans of Kinky's offbeat style, (and there are many of them), will find much here to enjoy.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Kinky, February 28, 2002

By 

Alice Baker (Mobile, AL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: When the Cat's Away (Mass Market Paperback)

I have read all the Kinky books, but this one is still my favorite. Since all his books have a "cat theme," this one is really carries it through with a cat show at Madison Square Garden. Great fun.

5.0 out of 5 stars Even better the 2nd time around; a brilliant writer, May 20, 2011

By 

Diogenes - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: When The Cat's Away (Masters of Crime) (Kindle Edition)

A few years back I made the mistake of lending my Kinky Friedman paperback collection to a friend, who shortly thereafter absconded with them all to Kuwait, where I understand they entertained most of a USMC battalion. When Vandam Press began re-releasing all of Kinky's books, I had the opportunity to give this title another read.
This book was even better the second time around. It's not as hilariously strange as Curse of the Missing Puppet Head, or as clever as some of Kinky's other titles, but it is a classic murder mystery on a par with Chandler and Spillane, with plenty of action. And I found myself laughing out loud every 15 minutes or so.
One warning: for some people, the first of Kinky's books that they read might be a gateway drug...I found myself compelled to reread one-by-one all of the other Kinky mysteries also now available.