Spanking Watson

Spanking Watson is a Kinky Friedman novel in which the narrator (Kinky Friedman, the actual country musician and the fictional amateur detective version of the same) gets pulled into investigating a series of stalker letters being received by various famous-and-not-famous New York women. The investigation is conducted from his Greenwich Village loft and his cat's presence is consistent.

The Friedman novels are a particular taste. The voice is brash, self-mythologizing, and committed to a kind of comic Jewish-Texan deadpan that either lands or does not. The plot is barely a plot. The pleasure is hanging out with Kinky and his Village Irregulars.

Three stars. Recommended to readers who already know they like Friedman's voice. Not the entry point; the earlier books in the series have stronger plots.