Armadillos & Old Lace

Droll yuks and the irascible charm of the Kinkster drive this seventh in a fine series starring the smart-mouthed New York City PI whom the author has named after himself. Kinky doesn't work much; mostly he fires up stogies, tosses back shots of Jameson, recalls the high and low points of his career as a country singer and traces the occasional weird case. Here he heads home to the Texas hill country, where his parents run a camp for spunky seven-year-olds and where a crew of old ladies are dying on their 76th birthdays. One oldster is found dead with her lips sewn shut. Kinky, investigating, discovers that the victims' pasts all share a link to an exclusionary club for Southern ladies. Fortunately, Kinky is also occupied with romancing a camp counselor, hunting for his missing cat and rediscovering his childhood self (as if that had ever been abandoned). At his best just mouthing off, Kinky is a crime original, a wayward spirit whose adventures offer plot substance and surprises neatly packaged with deft, jokey prose. (Sept.)#