Life for Kinky Friedman is a constant adventure. The fact that he hires himself out as a private detective presents ample opportunity for encounters of the dangerous kind. The fact that he lives in New York City quadruples the odds.

Why then does he assume that just because his latest assignment, to track down the birth parents of a friend who has discovered that he was adopted - an assignment given to him by Ratso, longtime pal and fellow Village irregular - is going to be a stroll in Central Park?

For no sooner does Kinky embark on this seemingly routine undertaking than he finds himself dialing a dead lawyer, being chased around the Miami airport by a krautmobile full of bandidos, and mourning the murder of the very friend who sent him on the journey in the first place.