Kinky Friedman: Blast from the Past (USA 2011)

From the Publisher:
Return with us now to those thrilling bygone days known as... The Seventies. It's 1974, and Blast From The Past is "... a plot devised by a devilishly clever mind, probably influenced by prohibited substances..." and "...the mother of all prequels...".

A younger, kinkier Kinky has just started performing at the Lone Star Cafe, and is also about to take on his first gig as an amateur detective: trying to figure out who is gunning for his houseguest, Barry Freed (a.k.a. on-the-run Yippie Abbie Hoffman). And, putting further demands on Kinky's budding Sherlockian skills, his new girlfriend, Judy, swears that she's being stalked by her ex-boyfriend -- whose very dead body has recently been shipped back from Vietnam. Helping Kinky are Ratso, Steve Rambam, Mike McGovern and the rest of the Village Irregulars, together for the very first time.

About "Blast From The Past", from the Author's Introduction: "Blast From The Past... offers a chance for the author and the reader to re-live that era known as the Sixties and the Seventies, when the music was great, the drugs were cheap, and the love was free.... Imagine being at the notorious Lone Star Café back in the Seventies when it was okay to do drugs, okay to have unprotected sex, okay to paddle a brat or spank a monkey. At the Lone Star in those days I was much younger and kinkier - uncouth, unshaped, unrepentant, and frequently unconscious.... "

Vandam Press is proud to be able to make this remarkable novel available again to Kinky's old friends and to those readers worldwide who are discovering Kinky Friedman for the first time.

Kinky Friedman: Blast from the Past. Vandam Press, ISBN: 9781937010072 (May, 2011), eBook, 652 KB (ca. 256 p.), $9.99.

Kinky Friedman: Blast from the Past (USA 1999)

From the Publisher:
Return with us now to those carefree days of yesteryear known as the 1970s -- when the Bee Gees were bigshots, all sex was safe, and smoking in public wasn't a hanging offense. In the heart of New York's Greenwich Village, Jewish cowboy Kinky Friedman is trying to survive as a country crooner at the Lone Star Cafe. And -- thanks to a trigger-happy stalker -- he's also just plain trying to survive. But who would want to blow away a lovable guy like the Kinkster? Are they really gunning for Kinky's houseguest, Barry Freed, a.k.a. Sixties radical Abbie Hoffman? Could there be a connection to Kinky's current girlfriend, Judy, who swears she's being followed by her old paramour, who perished in Vietnam? It's enough to drive a mild-mannered musician into the dirty business of detective work. But then, being shot at, almost blown up, and threatened with violent death will do that to a person.

Kinky Friedman: Blast from the Past. Ballantine Books, ISBN: 0345416309 (October, 1999), 256 p., $15.00.

Kinky Friedman: Blast from the Past (UK 1998)

From the Publisher:
The irrepressible Kinkster follows his bestselling novel Roadkill with a fresh, fabulous prequel that answers the burning question, 'Where the hell did those weird characters come from anyway?'

Those addicted to this true original have a special treat in store in Blast from the Past. The author has searched his failing memory and come up with a yarn about his early days in New York -- how Kinky Friedman, the down-and-out, sleazeball country-music performer, became Kinky Friedman, the down- and-out, sleazeball ace detective. It explains where those Village Irregulars -- Ratso, Rambam and McGovern -- came from, and why. And it asks the question, was Stephanie Dupont ever really a little girl, a five-year-old nymphet in patent leather spikes?

The answers to this and myriad other questions are to be found in Blast from the Past, a tale of murder, mayhem, madness, lust, considerable navel-gazing, and exceptional fun.

Kinky Friedman: Blast from the Past. Faber & Faber, ISBN: 0571197493 (November, 1998), 244 p., £5.99.

Kinky Friedman: Blast from the Past (USA 1998)

From the Publisher:
Now, at last, it can be revealed! The TRUTH behind the legend!
That Kinky Friedman...
Where did he come from?
How did he get that way?
Shouldn't someone have called 911 long ago?

Now, in Blast from the Past, nationally bestselling author Kinky Friedman has searched his failing memory and has come up with a novel about his early days in New York City and how Kinky Friedman, the down-and-out star-crossed country music performer, became Kinky Friedman, the down-and-out star-crossed ace detective.

In this prequel to his earlier novels, one which gives new meaning to the term "retro," Kinkster fans are given the definitive answer to two of literature's great burning, questions: Where the hell did those weird characters come from anyway? And what about that puppet head?

Of course, it's not just Kinky himself who gets retroed, but all the Village Iregulars as well -- Ratso, Rambam, and McGovern -- who are glimpsed in the nascent stage, as is the ever-uscious Stephanie DuPont, who blasts upon the scene as a five-year-old nymphet in patent-leather spikes.

Imagine it's the '70s. Imagine the Lone Star Cafe is still alive and well. Imagine that it's still okay to do drugs, still okay to have unprotected sex, still okay to paddle a brat and spank a monkey. And imagine you are there, in the '70s, at the Lone Star, sipping a brew with the Kinkster, a much younger, even kinkier Kinky -- uncouth, unshaped, unrepentant, and frequently unconscious.

But lest you think that Blast from the Past is all nostalgia, be assured that Kinky has supplied a bang-up plot as well, much of which revolves around the mystery of who this guy Tim is who Judy exclaims about while being hosed by Kinky, and the question of whether or not the Feds have found Abbie Hoffman, who has been playing hide-and-seek in Ratso's apartment. Or something like that. As always, it's great, unpredictable fun from a true original, whose "irreverent, bawdy and often outrageous adventures are like no others," as says The San Diego Union-Tribune. In Blast from the Past, you'll find the Kinkster in top form, and at his most outrageous.

Kinky Friedman: Blast from the Past. A Novel. Simon & Schuster, ISBN: 0684803798 (September, 1998), 254 p., $23.00.