The Prisoner of Vandam Street

The Prisoner of Vandam Street is one of the late-stretch Kinky Friedman mysteries, with the fictional Kinky housebound in his Greenwich Village loft after an extended dengue-fever flare-up, watching the apartment across the alley and gradually convincing himself that he is witnessing a planned murder. The Rear Window homage is explicit and Friedman handles it with appropriate self-aware humor.

Friedman's strength in The Prisoner of Vandam Street is the loft material. The Vandam Street geography, the Village neighborhood texture, and the specific way Kinky's housebound boredom develops are rendered with the kind of careful attention the author's long Village residence affords. The Village Irregulars eventually become involved. Fans of Donald Westlake's comic-crime novels or of Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn will recognize the careful comic-Manhattan literary register.

The plot machinery is the standard Friedman shape. The pleasure is the voice.

Three stars. Late-period Kinky for the form's regulars. The Prisoner of Vandam Street Kinky Friedman novel works best for readers already inside his voice. New readers should start with Greenwich Killing Time or A Case of Lone Star for cleaner introductions to the series.