Steppin' on A Rainbow - Tapa dura

"Houston Chronicle" Friedman's writing style is fresh, witty, and full of free association. He is irreverent and skilled in side-of-the-mouth dialogue and semi-obscure literary references. While he has been compared to Tom Lehrer and Will Rogers, his writing style contains elements of Lenny Bruce, Jack Kerouac, Elmore Leonard, and Mordecai Richler. His prose manages to be poetic and earthy at the same time.

Sly, devious, inventive, and more than a little irritating, the Bard of Vandam Street returns in "Steppin' on a Rainbow," a new adventure full of sound, fury, and a hula girl or two. Alone in the world -- meaning: anyone who will speak to him is out of town -- Kinky Friedman ponders the imponderables of life and discusses the state of the world with his cat. The cat, of course, says nothing. Kinky's reverie (and constant state of morbid self-absorption) is interrupted by a call from an old friend in Hawaii, Will Hoover, a journalist on a Honolulu newspaper. Hoover has called with a problem: Mike McGovern, one of Kinky's sidekicks and a stalwart Village Irregular, visiting Hawaii to work on a book, has disappeared while strolling on the beach. Knowing McGovern's penchant for taking the occasional side trip, Kinky is not overly concerned. As the days turn into yet more days, however, consternation grows to the point where Stephanie Dupont (called home from a Caribbean lull to bury her sixteen-year-old pesky Maltese dog) urges Kinky to fly to Hawaii to look into McGovern's disappearance and even offers to join him in the search. Additional support comes from P. I. Steve Rambam, who wings in from Israel to join in the hunt, as well as Kinky's pal John McCall, the Shampoo King from Dripping Springs. Texas, that is. Once in Hawaii, Kinky, Stephanie, Rambam, Hoover, and McCall set off on a perilous adventure involving ancient myths, sacrificial cults, totems, taboos, and the occasional lei. "Steppin' on a Rainbow" is Kinky Friedman doing what only Kinky Friedman can do -- and, as always, it's outrageous, unsettling, and very, very moving, all at once.