The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover (Abridged ed)

What do Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, Jackie Collins, Joseph Heller, Bob Dylan, and Willie Nelson have in common?

They're all Kinky Friedman fans, of course. These notables, along with a posse of critics, discovered the Kinkster some time ago, and immediately began heaping praise and other assorted objects on him: "The world's funniest, bawdiest, and most politically incorrect country music singer turned mystery writer . . . a classic. . . . The humor gleams as bright as Kinky's brontosaurusforeskin cowboy boots." -- The New York Times Book Review "Kinky is the best whodunit writer to come along since Dashiell what's-his-name." -- Willie Nelson "The Kinkster is a catcher, not in the rye, but in the sagebrush, and that's what is truly appealing about him and his work." -- Los Angeles Times "Kinky, Mozart, Shakespeare -- with what could I equal them?" -- Joseph Heller Well, if you don't know what these folks are so excited about, then read "The Love Song of J.

Edgar Hoover" and you'll soon find out. Filled with adventure, passion, excitement, and a fair amount of talk about cats and puppet heads, this latest installment in the on-going saga of man's inhumanity to the English language find New York's most cosmic private detective launched once again on an investigation that leads him far afield of both the law and the lower Manhattan loft he calls home.

In "The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover," Kinky Friedman, the author, has Kinky Friedman, the detective (in real life, the two are not related), rush to the aid of a lovely young woman, only to find that he is up to his shin splints in trouble of a disconcerting kind.

Soonafter Polly Price hires him to find her missing husband, Kinky smells a rat.

But it's not until he's been shot by the D.C. police and locked in a burning limousine by a Chicago chauffeur that he realizes he may be the one with his tail in a trap.

Then, when Michael McGovern, longtime friend and loyal member of the Village Irregulars, complains first of being watched by mysterious men, then of getting threatening phone calls from a dead gangster named Leaning Jesus, and finally disappears -- and along with him, the lovely Polly -- Kinky comes to the only conclusion the conceivably could link these disparate events: the FBI is after him!

As "The Washington Post Book World" said, "Nothing is sacred in a Kinky Friedman book.

Friedman and his characters will take on any subject and have at it.

Therein lies his charm." Well, in "The Love Song of J.

Edger Hoover," readers will find the ever-insouciant Kinky at his charming best.