Flynn

Inspector Francis Xavier Flynn (Confess, Fletch) arrives home at 2:30 AM to find his 12-year-old daughter awake and mooning over a fancy pin she received from I. M. Fletcher.  It is far too valuable for a girl her age and he intends to hang onto it until she is 18.  While he explains this, his twin 15-year-old sons enter yawning to declare that their violin was stolen from a locker at school.  Flynn is quizzing them about it when the sky explodes and the kitchen window shatters.  A plane departing Logan Airport plummets in three flaming chunks into the harbor.  He has had no sleep when he is summoned to see the commissioner about the plane crash.  Among the passengers were a boxer who just one the championship, a Federal judge, a famous actor, and a finance minister from a Middle-Eastern country.  No, Flynn is not expected to solve the crime, but he is to serve as liaison for the FBI.  After meeting with the taskforce, Flynn generally ignores them thereafter and proceeds to investigate on his own.

Not dissimilar from a standard Fletch novel, Flynn has plenty of wisecracks for the authority figures and often unusual questions or requests for the various folks he interviews.  It is repeatedly noted that he has little knowledge of the law and isn't really a cop.  Indeed, it is made clear that his position in the Boston Police Department is unique; he is the only inspector and housed at the hall of records rather than a precinct.  He has high-powered contacts that provide international intelligence.  Of course, where Fletch is just as likely to come to the wrong conclusion, Flynn makes some connections that lead to the solution.

Though his backstory from Confess, Fletch is not rehashed, it should be noted that his parents were killed in Munich by the Nazis toward the end of the war.  He had been something of a teenaged spy and continued in that line of work thereafter.  The book takes place in the 1970s, so Flynn is probably in his late 40s.  He has a contentious relationship with the police sergeant assigned to him, in fact, often insubordinate.  Of course, Flynn calls him Grover, which isn't his name, so there is cause for discord.

Interestingly, when the story is all told, there are still several items that are unresolved.  That actually made the mystery all the more real.  There are often conflicting reports in such events, many that don't pan out.  Not just suspects who prove to be innocent, but witness testimony that doesn't mesh with the final conclusion.  So common in real life but rarely found in detective fiction; all those loose ends are nicely resolved by Holmes or Poirot.

Good read and recommended.