Kinky Friedman: When the Cat's Away (UK 1998)

From the Publisher:
Winnie Katz's lesbian dance class was like God. Mankind never saw it, but you always knew it was there... I listened to the rhythmic thuddings in the loft above me. I wondered what the hell was going on up there. If somebody's wayward daughter from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, was being broken down like a double-barreled shotgun, it'd be a hell of a lot of early ballroom lessons gone to waste. On the other hand, what did I know about modern dance?

It was a chilly evening in late January and I was sitting at my desk just sort of waiting for something besides my New Year's resolutions to kick in. If you're patient and you wait long enough, something will usually happen and it'll usually be something you don't like...

A purloined feline from Madison Square Gardens' cat show is the tip-off to a trail of murders, drug rings and gang wars that only Kinky Friedman can follow, with plenty of off-the-cuff wisecracks in tow. But there's more than one way to skin a cat, and Kinky may soon be wishing for nine lives...

Kinky Friedman: When the Cat's Away. Faber and Faber, ISBN: 0571194133 (July, 1998), 181 p., £5.99.

Kinky Friedman: When the Cat's Away (USA 1989)

From the Publisher:
He's prowled the back streets of Greenwich Village. Stalked behind the scenes in Manhattan's hippest hot spots. Now New York City's one and only country singer-turned-sleuth takes on a catastrophic crime that's wild, witty -- and essential Kinky!

A purloined feline from Madison Square Garden's cat show is the tip-off to a trail of murders, drug rings, and gang wars that only Kinky Friedman could follow, with plenty of off-the-cuff wisecracks in tow. But there's more than one way to skin a cat, and Kinky may soon be wishing for nine lives...

Kinky Friedman: When the Cat's Away. Berkley Books, ISBN: 0425118304 (October, 1989), 244 p., $3.95.

Kinky Friedman: When the Cat's Away (USA 1988)

From the Publisher:
"The Damon Runyon of the '80s" (New York Woman) is back with the third in a series of mystery novels renowned as much for their wisecracking, cigar-smoking, cat-loving reluctant hero-detective as for their pungent New York-based stories.

And he's at his funniest and sharpest in When the Cat's Away, which begins with the search for a cat that has mysteriously disappeared from the cat show at Madison Square Garden, a tranquil lovefest populated by cuddly kittens and their adoring but eccentric owners. But when it's disrupted by the kidnapping of Kinky's friend's cat, he promises to help find her.

While searching for this white-pawed wonder with the aid of his modern-day Watson, Ratso, Kinky stumbles into a gang war between Colombian cocaine cartels, a smoldering love affair with a pretty Palestinian, and several rather ghastly murders.

The race to find this friendly kitten's link to violent murder is vintage Kinky.

Kinky Friedman: When the Cat's Away. Beech Tree Books / William Morrow, ISBN: 068807555X (August, 1988), 244 p., $16.95.