All That Jazz

September, 1998

Kinky Friedman and Patricia Cornwell are best-selling authors who once had different careers: He was a self-described sleazeball country music performer, she was a medical examiner. Both just published their 11th novels, each of which might be termed a tour de farce. But that effect is intentional for only one of them. Friedman's Blast From the Past (Simon & Schuster) is like an acid flashback. The tale covers a period in the Seventies when he was fronting the Shalom Retirement Village People an...