With his latest novel, author Kinky Friedman says hasta luego to detective fiction and makes a serious attempt to write comic literature.

Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned is told in hindsight by Walter Snow, a mopey, aging novelist who’s been on the wagon for seven years and lives in a basement apartment in New York City, an overworked metaphor for an author with writer’s block.

Walter isn’t just blocked but "spiritually constipated," a sorry state he endures anonymously until "two of the most colorful, exciting, soulful people in the world" come crashing into his buttoned-up existence.

Clyde, a woman Walter immediately falls in lust with, and Fox, Clyde’s "roommate," whom she describes as "the king of the Gypsies," are basically a couple of two-bit con artists who bum a lot of cigarettes and make profound statements such as "Everything we do, we do with all our hearts" (Fox); "Let Fox and me be who we are. Free birds that choose to fly in your sky" (Clyde); and "If more people were as crazy, as thoughtful, and as unconventional as Fox, it would be a better world" (you know who).

Crazy is, in fact, a term repeatedly and redundantly (and, after a while, irritatingly) used to describe this dynamic duo.

Their unconventional behavior includes skipping down a busy Manhattan street singing, "We’re off to see the wizard," locking pinkies in a pact and leaving a smoke bomb in the linen hamper. And the adventures get more serious, like playing the old marked-C-note trick in a bar (doesn’t every bar patron know this little number?) and busting a crazy pal out of "wig city."

Then there’s the Donald Trump credit-card scam (they’d be found in the river) and finally an all-out, increasingly terrorist assault on a Starbucks cafe, whose opening salvo is Operation Diarrhea. (Don’t ask.)

Friedman gets off some good lines, among them "I was catching up on my masturbation that morning." And "It was not love at first sight. That happens every day and usually results in a hostage situation." And, a classic, "drunk enough to go duck hunting with a rake." But my favorite is the recipe for German chocolate cake: "Well, the first step is, you occupy the kitchen." And a "stream-of-nervousness" soliloquy late in the book in Fox’s voice is a tour de force of profane blasphemy. Great stuff.

All this craziness, predictably, results in "The Great Armenian Novel," the story of Foxy and Clyde — Walter’s spell of writer’s block is broken.

As ribald and refreshing a raconteur as is Kinky Friedman, on the page he remains a "wood chopper," a term Walter ruminates on in one of the novel’s frequent asides about the publishing industry and the difficulty of writing, "with only narrow, formulaic talents." Despite flashes of brilliance and laugh-out-loud observations, Friedman frequently takes the easy route, whether from sloppiness or laziness or poor editing. He tells, rather than shows, and we’re unconvinced.

Characters are cardboard, especially Clyde and Fox, and the dialogue is stony. Would you say this to someone? "I’ve never been around people like you and Fox before and I’ve certainly never before looked at life the way you do or done the crazy and exciting things you two do every day of your lives."

All great fiction is true, Walter notes correctly. Unfortunately, Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned isn’t even a facsimile.

Steve Bennett writes for the San Antonio Express-News.