Blast from the Past: A Novel (Kinky Friedman Novels) (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Call me Kinky..." (more)
Key Phrases: hummingbird dick, lesbian dance class, marching powder, New York, Tom Baker, Barry Freed (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Kinky's back, and Abbie Hoffman's got him. Or he's got Abbie. Or a mysterious man with dirty blonde hair and a faded camouflage jacket has them both in his gunsights. It's always hard to tell who the bad guys are, because the country-western singer turned author draws an almost invisible line between his real life and his fictional adventures. That, of course, is where the fun comes in. In Blast from the Past, the Kinkster serves up an appetizer for his myriad fans--a prequel to such novels as Roadkill and The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover. The book explains how Kinky got into the detecting game and met up with the Greenwich Village irregulars who populate this popular series--Ratso, Rambam, McGovern, and the luscious Stephanie DuPont. The action takes place in the post-Watergate 1970s, when Abbie's hiding out in upstate New York, sex and drugs are de riguer, and nobody's ever heard of political correctness. The mystery is pretty simple--you can see the ending coming long before Kinky can--but that's never been the point of these bawdy, irreverent tales. To quote Friedman himself, "Being a private dick is pretty simple. Once you run out of cocaine, crazy ideas, and self-pitying bullshit, you're eventually left with the truth." --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

The 11th adventure from Texas-based Friedman, a former New York City musician who writes about band-player, amateur detective Kinky Friedman (Roadkill; The Love Song of Edgar J. Hoover; etc.), will delight early fans with its return to Greenwich Village and the Kinkster's sleuthing roots. In this prequel, which starts in the present, Kinky is hit on the head while walking up to the apartment of the elusive and beautiful Stephanie DuPont. Suddenly it's the late 1970s and Kinky is meeting his sidekick crew, the Village Irregulars, for the first time: Steve Rambam, Mike McGovern and Pete Myers. Larry "Ratso" Sloman (Kinky's own version of Dr. Watson) suggests that, since Kinky has a convoluted mind, he should become a detective. The detecting game begins when activist Abbie Hoffman comes in from the cold and crashes at Kinky's apartment. Abbie seems somewhat paranoid, but perhaps with reason. When the apartment gets blown up, Kinky starts down the sleuthing road, trying to deduce who might be stalking Abbie. Or is it Kinky himself that someone is after? Kinky says his old friend Abbie is "just one of the guys... who invented the sixties," but in this story Abbie is also a tragic, deluded symbol of how 1960s idealism was marginalized and ultimately ignored. This hearkening back is one of Friedman's best efforts, gathering amateur sleuthing, an eccentric cast and his trademark raunchy, irreverent over-the-top humor into an hilarious mix.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st ed/1st printing edition (September 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684803798
• ISBN-13: 978-0684803791
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,430,508 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fresh gimmickry keeps the Kinky series top-notch!, June 5, 2002

By	William Fare (Cedar Rapids, IA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I had lost some faith in Kinky Friedman's tales of the Village Irregulars and the "mysteries" that they take on. Most folks noticed that the series was starting to get long on drawl and short on substance about the time the gang was searching for Ratso's mother...however, Friedman had a flash of brilliance when he started pulling out new scenarios for his alter ego.

First was Kinky going back home to Texas to fight the bad buys on the stomping grounds of his youth instead of the mean streets of New York. Then we had an entry featuring Willie Nelson as one of the main characters (Roadkill is still the best of the series, too). Now, in Blast From The Past, Kinky's back on Vandam Street...circa 1979. That's right, a blow to the head sends the Kinkstah's memory banks through the years to his first amateur detective work ever. And, to make things even loonier, counter-culture hero (and real life Friedman pal from back in the day) Abbie Hoffman is the center of much of the action.

For those of you who've never read a Kinky Friedman book this is not a good place to start. By this point in the series it's understood that the reader "gets" Kinky's world and the characters in it. If you're not familiar with the skidmark-covered couch over at Ratso's place or the unusual greeting that they get every time they enter Big Wong's restaurant...well, go back a few books and catch up first. Many of the recurring points of interest in the series have their origins explained in this volume as well, but you have to know what the big deal is about.

The jump back in time also sends the meter of un-PC behavior skyrocketing. The Kinkster is eyebrows-deep in the 'ole Peruvian Marching Powder and has just discovered Jameson's whiskey. It's a high old time (and it opens with Kinky in bed with a strange girl). It's grand fun and proof that there's still plenty of new ground to explore in the series. Or at least plenty of off-color jokes, humorous antecdotes, sex, drugs, and a teensy bit of crime-solving. My faith in this Texas Jewboy is as strong as ever.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Hold the weddin', it's time for a change!, January 26, 1999

By	[e-mail] (The wonderful US of A!) - See all my reviews

Kinky Friedman has been my favorite writer, balladeer for many a moon. His exploits with the Village Irregulars has kept me laughing through my share of rainy days and plenty of bad cigars.

Alas, Blast from the Past did not live up to the creative, humorous standard the Kinkstah has established for himself. I found it to be repetitive and sometimes stale as a fifty cent stogie. I think it's time to rotate the tires on this bad boy and pump some gas into the fuel injector. Kinky's too good a writer to allow his novels to fall so flat. If this was indeed the product of a ghost writer, maybe that person should make like a ghost and get the Boo out of the industry.

I still have faith and eagerly await the next opus. I even have the Jameson waiting by the easy chair.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Average by Kinky's Standards, January 23, 2001

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

You get the sense that Kinky needed a change of pace with Blast from the Past, as if even he realized that his previous few novels were almost becoming caricatures of themselves. So he wrote a "prequel", going back in time to the early 1970's in order to bring together the Village Irregulars for the first time, and to detail his beginnings in the private detective world.

As usual, Steve Rambam is all business, Ratso is his typical wisecracking cheapskate self, and McGovern drifts in and out of the plot as a hard-drinking, loud Irishman with little to do. The action begins on Ratso's couch with Kinky in the arms of "Judy", although it is not specified whether we are dealing with Uptown Judy or Downtown Judy from Elvis, Jesus and Coca Cola fame. Abbie Hoffman a.k.a. Barry Freed drifts into the picture, and the mystery of the novel involves someone who is apparently trying to kill either Hoffman, Kinky or Judy. A parallel plot line, which Kinky suspects may be related to the first, involves the appearance of a man Judy believes to be her deceased Vietnam veteran husband.

As in all Friedman books, the plot is just there as an amusing excuse to throw the various characers together for some good-natured fun. It probably has more substance to it than Spanking Watson, (at least we weren't treated to two dozen conversations with a mute cat), but overall I agreed with some of the other reviewers who thought this effort was a little empty. The characers don't get along, so there is little sense of camaraderie, and you get tired of reading about Kinky's agressive appetite for "Peruvian marching powder". I thought the funniest scene was one in which Kinky, getting ready for a date with Judy, unknowingly brushes his "moss" with a toilet brush at McGovern's apartment. I give it 3 stars, an interesting diversion but instantly forgettable.