Kinky Friedman "Ten Little New Yorkers"

Well, I guess that there are eight homicides and two presumed fatalities in Ten Little New Yorkers suggests that's about it for the Kinkster, folks.

I've had a feeling that Mr Friedman was starting to run out of ideas through the last few volumes. Where once the crime side of the plot line hit the ground running, Curse of the Missing Puppet Head almost seemed to have Chinga Chavin's little difficulty with the hit and run accident thrown in to provide the Kinkster with something to do that would require a little celebration once it was accomplished, and the celebration, in turn, provided the excuse to locate the missing object.

In much the same way, the dose of malaria in Prisoner of Vandam Street provides an excuse for a gathering of the usual suspects (the Village Irregulars) and the crime, when it kicks in, serves to provide them something to spark off as they question the Kinkster's sanity and long term health prospects.

This time around, with winter chills slowing activity around Vandam Street to a near halt (even Winnie Katz's lesbian dance class has gone into hibernation and the cat has gone missing), the Kinkster lights out for the warmth of Texas.

He's not there long, though. A phone call from Mz Katz reveals the discovery of someone's wallet on the floor of a certain loft, and a subsequent call from Detective Sergeant Mort Cooperman has him winging his way back to the Big Apple to assist police with their enquiries.

The wallet found on the floor belonged, as it turns out, to a certain Robert Scalopini, who seems to have been the fourth in a series of brutal murders and the killings keep on coming, along with clues on the crime scene that seem to point towards a certain well known ex-country singer and amateur private detective or a close acquaintance with an in depth knowledge of his habits and music.

Maybe that's why the only Village Irregulars on hand are McGovern, whose articles on the killings aren't actually helping matters, and Ratso, cast in his regular and seemingly preferred role as Watson to the Kinkster's Sherlock.

While we don't get a cut and dried solution to the murders it's pretty clear that we've reached the end of the Kinkster series. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that, in the end, the stories are as much about the Irregular interaction as they are about the crimes themselves, and there are only so many ways that the regular elements - Ratso, McGovern, Rambam, the cat, the puppet head, lesbian dance classes, Big Wong's and the other landmarks around Greenwich Village - can be arranged, and Friedman has run out of possibilities.

Given the fact that Friedman has spun a reasonably limited palette out to eighteen titles that probably comes as no surprise, and while I've reached the end of the series they'll continue to provide reasonably easy and relatively lightweight reading while I'm in transit between airports and waiting around on the ground.

They're not everyone's cup of tea, but if you've tried one and liked it, they're rather moreish...