Flynn's World

It is late at night when Flynn is summoned by Jenny, his 13-year-old daughter, to a nearby cemetery.  There, they find Billy, Jenny's boyfriend, with his ear nailed to a tree.  Billy refused to say who nailed him to the tree, even if it costs him his ear.  The following day, Flynn is sent to meet with the president of Harvard, who would like Flynn to investigate potential threats to an elderly professor.  Flynn finds that the man, once a beloved academic, has somehow become a pariah.  Moreover, threatening letters, phone calls, and even websites abound.  What could be the cause of this?  Lastly, a particular detective has an outstanding conviction record and yet the demographics of his arrests is 100% minorities.  Peculiar.

Where previous Flynn novels have tackled monetary shenanigans (The Buck Passes Flynn) and the undeserved power of the rich and powerful (Flynn's In), this one explores the decline of academia, racism, and the first inklings of co-ed sports.  The story of the Harvard professor involves both anger at his failure to retire (he's 76) and his clinging to old-fashioned thinking that Western Civilization is objectively better than those being promoted.  Of note, the faculty is shown to break into little cliques based on their race, ethnicity, or age.  This Balkanization of academia is viewed negatively.  Clearly, McDonald preferred an earlier version of Harvard's faculty; it should be noted that Gregory McDonald attended Harvard.  In another of the storylines, Flynn shows displeasure at co-ed sports, notably wrestling in this particular instance.  Were McDonald still alive, one supposes he would be against transgenderism, at least as regards sports.  Lastly, the corrupt cop proves to be a Nazi.  Wow, subtle on the racism storyline!

Though better than the previous two entries, it has some serious problems.  First, it takes place when it is written: the late 1990s.  With Flynn's first appearance being in 1976.  In the late 1990s, his daughter is still only 13.  Hmm.  Also, it is again mentioned how his parents were murdered by Nazis at the end of the war when he was 14.  So, born in 1931, he would be in his late 60s by now.  Yeah, I am reminded of comic book characters who never age.  Bart Simpson has been in the 4th grade for more than 30 years.  Second, the mysteries are not really mysteries.  While investigating the nailed ear case, Flynn spoke to a person who knew the reasons but failed to offer them.  The resolution for the Harvard professor was just as disappointing, the main culprit being unbelievable.  As for the corrupt cop, good grief.  Let's just stick a secret Nazi on the police force and have Flynn figure it out.  Ugh.

The much-maligned Grover, Flynn's dull-witted assistant, has an opportunity to shine by attaching himself to the good professor.  Yes, by the end, Flynn finds that there may be hope for Grover.  This was a nice change of pace as I had grown tired of Grover the clown.

Having now read all the Flynn novels, I'd say that McDonald should have stuck with Fletch instead.  Flynn was a terrific support character in Confess, Fletch, and would have been fun to see return as many other characters had.  As the central character, he was not a particularly good detective, never lived up to his super spy hype, and all too often offered asides meant purely for the reader.  He had to be surrounded by dullards to seem smart, which is exactly what happened.

Flynn's In

Inspector Flynn receives a call from the Police Commissioner who asks him to pack a bag and head to the Rod & Gun Club, which is located in a neighboring state.  Also, tell no one where he is going.  Flynn wakes his wife and tells her where he is going.  Next, he calls retired Detective Walter "Cocky" Concannon to see if he is up for a drive to the country.  Indeed, he is.  The pair arrive at the retreat for the ultrawealthy and politically powerful to learn that a member has died.  Of course, in order to avoid any legal entanglements at the club, the body was moved to a nearby motel.  Flynn quickly determines that the 'accidental death while cleaning a shotgun' story doesn't fly.  The man was clearly murdered, but by whom?  There are plenty of suspects.  No sooner have Flynn and Cocky begun the investigation than there is another body.  Once again, the corpse is spirited away to prevent a scandal.  With the Police Commissioner onsite and seemingly approving of such antics, Flynn is overruled in his desire to call in the state police.

As with the previous Flynn novel, McDonald explains the workings of the world through Flynn and his observations.  The rich and powerful are mostly amoral fools who nonetheless rule the world.  Laws and ethics don't apply to them.  That wouldn't be so annoying if there was actually a mystery that Flynn solves.  Instead, he finds a basketful of motivation for each person just before that person is murdered.  The members cover up the murder but remain at the lodge, knowing full well that the murderer is still on the loose.  Like I said, fools.  When the murderer is discovered, it came out of the blue.  Though the author repeatedly tells us that Flynn is brilliant, he doesn't show us that he is.  He's no Sherlock Holmes.

While Flynn is stuck at the rich man's lodge, he is often on the phone with the increasingly dull-witted Grover.  Grover is on the case of a hit-and-run, which seems to interest Flynn quite a bit.  Does this somehow tie into the various murders at the Rod & Gun Club?  No, not at all.  No idea why it is even included.  When Flynn was first introduced in Confess, Fletch, the murder tied in with the painting investigation in a surprise twist.  No such thing here.  Just a pointless tangent.

One interesting part of the novel was the ongoing game of chess between Flynn and Cocky.  The moves are all listed as the two discuss the case.  When Flynn makes the final move, Cocky looks at the board bewildered and concedes defeat.  A serious chess fan could setup a board and see how the game went.  Neat idea.

By the end, it was just too ludicrous.  Flynn is all talk and no action.  His deductions lead nowhere and really just tell us how bad these rich and politically-connected fools are.  Skip.

The Buck Passes Flynn

The book opens with Flynn assassinating the President of the United States.  It's a mock assassination, only meant to prove that Flynn's agency - N. N. - is quite capable and worthy of contract work for the government.  Shortly afterward, Flynn is assigned to find out why envelopes filled with $100,000 are flooding random locations and causing havoc.  He starts in the abandoned town of Ada, where every resident received an envelope and left.  Population 1800 to 3 in less than a week.  He found many of the former residents in Las Vegas, most worse off than before.  In a resort island town in Massachusetts, the reverse happened.  The residents stayed but kicked out the tourists.  Not a single business is still open but there are frequent delivery boats to cater to the hermit-like residents.  Who is dumping all this money and why?

Flynn has become a less interesting character here.  Rather than an odd police inspector, he is now an international spy.  Sure, there were hints of that in the last book, but here we see his spycraft.  Meh.  His infiltration of Russia is played for laughs.  He has adopted more of Fletch's non-sequitur comments that play more to the reader than to whomever he is addressing.  His super agency that seems to know all on short notice totally fails to make any effort to identify a tag along character claiming to be sent by the president.  Really?  And now we discover that N.N. is opposed by the nasty and villainous K agency, which has a campus in Russia.  Good grief, this is sounding like KAOS vs. CONTROL from Get Smart!

The plot has holes the size of Texas.  Suddenly a bunch of non-counterfeit bills are appearing and, it is finally revealed, that they were bills that should have been incinerated over the last many years.  Um, you know bills have serial numbers.  That first batch with real money should have revealed that someone wasn't incinerating money.

Though it begins well enough and certainly piques one's interest, it devolves into a screed on inflation, the petrodollar, and the monetary system.  The constant harping on inflation grew more and more tedious.  Of course, when the book was written (1980), inflation was double digits.  The impact of the $100K envelopes is one long tale of woe and disaster, to which Flynn responds with smart ass commentary.  The mix of 'comedy' with his clear concern regarding the eroding value of money didn't work.

Though warned that Flynn was just hiding out as a Boston Inspector and his real job was being a 'spy' for some No Name (N. N.) agency, it would have been better to just leave him as the quirky detective.  Beyond the opening assassination, he never uses a gun, he never gets in a brawl, doesn't break-in or infiltrate anywhere.  Heck, all the doors and gates are literally open or unlocked.  Even the Russian police officer proves to be nothing but helpful to an obvious foreigner without any documents.  Sigh.

Skip!

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.

Fletch Reflected

Jack has only just finished his story on the Tribe (Son of Fletch) for GCN when he gets a call from an old flame.  Shana is engaged to Chet Radleigh, son of famed inventor Dr. Chester Radleigh.  Dr. Radleigh has an immense estate in Georgia called Vindemia, where he has created an idyllic setting for his family.  However, someone is trying to kill him.  Shana invites Jack to investigate.  Having soured on GCN, Jack heads to Georgia and gets a job at the estate.

Meanwhile, Fletch retrieves Jack's mother from the fraudulent weight loss clinic and drives her from Wisconsin to Wyoming.  He plans to deposit her with a man who trains boxers.  On the road, he often chats with Jack to learn the latest events and offer sage advice.

The Radleighs are the standard dysfunctional family in a Fletch novel.  With the exception of Shana and the doctor's mother-in-law, everyone expresses bitterness toward Dr. Radleigh.  Shana believes that Dr. Radleigh's four children are responsible for the multiple attempts on his life.  There is the oldest, Amy, who has been thrice married and has 7 kids, Chet the Phi Beta Kappa law student who is being groomed for politics, Alixis the nymphomaniac actress, and Duncan the racecar enthusiast.  Doctor Radleigh's wife is a walking case of depression.  Even the employees speak ill of Dr. Radleigh.  There will be no shortage of suspects if a murder is successful.

The storyline with Fletch driving the morbidly obese Crystal across the country is often a lesson on weight control.  It was funny when Crystal suggested that Fletch write a book on the subject since this book offers lots of pop-psychology on the topic.  Meh.  The whole thread of Fletch & Crystal across America is weak and generally not believable.

Jack is a pale reflection of his father.  Where Fletch would cleverly insert himself into social situations and pump people for knowledge, Jack just openly pries.  There's nothing subtle in his questioning.  Mostly, everyone just spills their guts when he's around.  Let's air our dirty laundry with this new anonymous employee.  Some of that is played as the ignore-the-help snobbery of elites but quite often he is poking his nose where lowly servants ought not.

In the end, most of the mysteries that littered the story are not resolved.  The conclusion is disappointing, having comically bad events with a descent into madness.  Not to ruin it, but it has one of those Murder on the Orient Express villains, i.e., everyone did it.  It is not surprising that this was the conclusion to the Fletch series.

Skip this one.

Son of Fletch

Fletch and long-time girlfriend Carrie are driving back to the farm when they encounter a roadblock.  The deputy explains that there are four escaped prisoners in the area.  In fact, the sheriff wanted to know if he could borrow Fletch's jeep to do some offroad searching.  Stopping well-before the farm, Fletch and Carrie approached the house on foot.  After seeing Carrie safely into a room and arming her with a shotgun, Fletch went back for the jeep.  Upon his arrival, he turned on lights and left the door to his study unlocked.  Soon after, someone arrived.  "Hi, son," Fletch greeted without turning around.

Jack Fletcher Faoni is the child of Crystal Faoni, who appeared in Fletch's Fortune and with whom Fletch had a brief dalliance.  Jack admits to being one of the escaped prisoners and says his crime was attempted murder.  Though the right age and having a strong resemblance to Fletch, Fletch is skeptical.  Jack reveals that his fellow escapees are in the barn and their destination is Alabama.  Mildly curious about this son he never knew he had until today, Fletch plays along but makes sure to have several aces in his pocket should things go sideways.

The escapees are members of The Tribe, a white supremacist organization with dreams of conquering Miami, Florida.  Much of the story covers Fletch's doubts about Jack even being his son.  This is made all the more difficult when Fletch is unable to contact Crystal so she can confirm or deny Jack's story.  However, Jack does know a lot about Fletch.

The villains are only occasionally threatening.  Mostly they are the keystone cops of white supremacy, causing far more trouble for themselves than to others.  Where other Fletch novel's had murders to solve, this one was about confirming whether Jack was Fletch's son or not.  Toward the end of the novel, Jack took over as the main character.

Overall, it started fairly well but the story became less believable as it progressed.  The complete haplessness of The Tribe really diminished most of the tension.  It does make for an interesting follow up to Fletch, Too, in which Fletch met the father he never knew.

Just okay.

Fletch and the Man Who

Fletch has been called by his old commanding officer, Walsh Wheeler, to fill in as a press secretary for his father's presidential campaign.  Fletch accepts the position and arrives to discover crime reporter Freddie Arbuthnot - last seen in Fletch's Fortune - among the press.  She is investigating murders that have occurred on the fringes of the Wheeler campaign.  Fletch has been given strict instruction to not let the murders get associated with the campaign, as that would be the kiss of death.  His idea of calling in the FBI is dismissed as that would be the story of the campaign from thence forward.  Very quickly, Fletch finds he likes Governor Caxton Wheeler, the Man Who could be the next president of the United States, and wants to protect his chances by exposing the murderer before it unravels the campaign.  There are a surprising number of suspects.  When not surreptitiously investigating, Fletch mingles with those on the campaign trail.  There's is the Man Who, his driver, his wife, the speech writers, the strategists, and a sea of journalists from various papers and magazines.  He even has conversations with his predecessor, who had been abruptly fired but still wants to help the Man Who could be president.

An entertaining yarn that explores political campaigning and offers some background to Fletch's military past.  He had some outside-the-box thinking to keep his platoon alive, something that Lt. Walsh Wheeler well-remembers.  Fletch is back to his quirky self and this is a fun entry in the Fletch series.

Recommended.

Fletch, Too

Only a few days after the events of Fletch Won, Fletch and Barbara are married.  At the wedding, Fletch finally meets his mother-in-law.  Fletch's mother, Josie, also attends the wedding.  Oh, and he meets his future second ex-wife Linda there too.  After the ceremony, Fletch is handed an envelope that claims to be from the father he never knew and who he was told had died the day he was born; it was thought he crashed his plane in the mountains and the wreck was never found.  The letter comes with tickets to Nairobi, Kenya, and $1,000.  Fletch confronts his mother, who readily admits that his father may be alive, though she had him declared dead years ago.  She is opposed to his flying to Kenya.  Oh, and she writes murder mysteries for a living.  At the last moment, he had Barbara switch planes.  Instead of a ski vacation in Colorado, they go to Kenya where the travelogue begins.

Much like Carioca Fletch, this book has Fletch being dragged from place to place, experiencing the wonders and oddities of Kenya.  Instead of the scions of Brazil, his guides are Peter Carr, a middle-aged pilot and friend of his father, and Juma, a native Kenyan.  To fit the story into the standard murder mystery template of the series, Fletch witnesses a murder shortly after touching down in Kenya.  Though he can identify the murderer, he doesn't want to get entangled in Kenyan courts, especially as he learns more about the harsh penalties and considering the curious looks he drew when arriving with skis, snow boots, and sweaters.  Heck, he might get arrested for the crime.

Barbara is already a shrew, though she has a right to be.  Why she agreed to go to Kenya without at least packing a different wardrobe is inexplicable.  Both of them suffered in their skis suits rather than buy some more appropriate garb with the $1,000.  Obviously, that was done for laughs, but it was more groan-inducing.  Barbara was less grating that in the previous book, but it is still obvious this marriage is not going to last.  Still have no idea why they married.

Of particular note, Fletch cannot identify his father.  Even accepting the story that he had died long ago, one would think that Fletch had at least seen some pictures of his father.  Apparently not.  Upon seeing him, he had no idea.  Thanks, mom.  Of course, Josie certainly had reason to be upset with the husband who abandoned her.  She suspected he had not died in a plane crash, though she had not let Fletch know that.

The mystery isn't a mystery.  Fletch doesn't solve it, it just reveals itself in the end.  As with the travelogue of Rio de Janeiro, one suspects that Gregory McDonald had recently gone to Kenya and thought it would be great to use that experience for a book.  It would have been a great idea if only he had a plot that was advanced by the various locations.

Meeting Fletch's parents should have made for a much better book.  It's better than Carioca Fletch, which isn't setting the bar high.  Mediocre.

Fletch Won

Fletch has been with the News-Tribune for 3 months, is engaged to be married on Saturday, is supposed to meet his future mother-in-law at dinner, and has just been given the uninteresting job of interviewing an oily lawyer who is giving $5 million to the museum.  Of course, being Fletch, everything goes awry.  The lawyer is found dead in the newspaper parking lot.  Fletch views this as great news, since his story is now a murder case.  Nope.  Biff Wilson of the crime beat will take over.  He is sent to investigate an escort agency, something that he is less than keen to discuss with his fiancée.  Worse, there is a notorious robber who bears a striking resemblance to Fletch, causing him repeated problems.  Despite being pulled from the murder story, Fletch investigates, much to the irritation of his editor and Biff.

Chronologically the first book in the series, it is the 8th to be written.  In the previous novels, it had been revealed that Fletch was twice divorced, graduated from Northwestern University, worked as a reporter in Chicago, and had earned a Bronze Star while serving in the Marine Corps in southeast Asia (presumably Vietnam).  Here, he comes off as a fellow on his first newspaper job, stuck doing menial tasks and not having a desk to himself.  There are some funny hints at the future, such as when the society page editor mentions the Stanwyks (cf. Fletch) or he mentions his interest in art (cf. Confess, Fletch).

There is a bit too much slapstick and frequently surpassing the suspension of disbelief.  When Fletch is being throttled in the editor's office, I could only picture Homer throttling Bart in The Simpsons.  The police chase was just ludicrous.  Also, Fletch is getting married at the end of the week but has no chemistry with his fiancée.  The reader already knows they are getting divorced, so why bother working on any attraction between them beyond some sex scenes?  After his convincing affairs with Moxie, one expects some sparks with his first wife.

As for the mysteries, they are hardly worthy of note.  The book drags out the discovery of the murderer, which required almost no deductive reasoning at all.  As for the escort agency, Fletch largely outsourced that.  Sure, that's good work, but it was someone else's work.  Unimpressive on both counts.

Overall, disappointing.

Fletch's Moxie

No sooner has Fletch arrived at the Florida filming location for Midsummer Night's Madness, the latest film by his on & off love interest, Moxie Mooney, than the producer is murdered on the set.  It turns out that everyone had a reason to kill Steve Peterman, especially Moxie.  Fletch absconds with Moxie and her even more famous father, legendary actor Freddy Mooney, to Key West.  The Fort Myers police are unimpressed.  Soon, the major cast members, the current director, the fired director, and a cast member's wife are in residence at the home Fletch had rented in Key West.  Fletch is unimpressed; this was supposed to be a hiding place but has instead become a stop on the local bus tours.  Per his usual, Fletch spends a lot of time trying to ferret out who murdered Peterman, frequently fearing that it may very well have been Moxie.  To add to his trouble, Freddy is a drunkard who often wanders off, which requires Fletch to scout the local bars to retrieve him.  Then there is the man from whom he rented the Key West house, who is apoplectic about the news that it is housing a suspected murderess and many Hollywood notables.

McDonald delivered another enjoyable page turner.  Unlike other notable sleuths, Fletch often comes to the wrong conclusions.  He followed the wrong track in Confess, Fletch; it was Inspector Flynn who solved the crime.  Of course, the crime was something of a sidetrack in that novel, as Fletch was investigating some missing paintings.  Here too, he goes on some wild goose chases before his epiphany.  He's an investigative reporter, not some Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot.  It makes him more human than some of the superhero detectives.  Plus, there's more humor.

In retrospect, there are some aspects that make no sense.  Peterman's machinations look to have been pointless and wasteful.  Maybe he was incompetent in addition to being crooked.  Nonetheless, it's a good read and definitely recommended.

Carioca Fletch

Six weeks after Fletch left California with $3 million in cash, he is immersing himself in Brazilian culture.  While having drinks in the afternoon with his girlfriend, Laura, and a poet, Marilia, he spots Joan Stanwyk, widow of Alan Stanwyk and the source of the $3 million.  No sooner has he avoided her than an old woman accosts him, claiming he is Janio Baretto.  He speaks virtually no Portuguese, so he understands little of what she says.  Laura translates, explaining that Fletch is the reincarnation of her husband, Janio, and he must reveal who murdered him 47 years ago.  Though he views this as ludicrous, Laura warns that he won't rest until he finds his murderer.

It is Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, a time when people go crazy.  As predicted, Fletch suffers insomnia and cannot rest for the duration of Carnival.  He spends most of the time trying to avoid the various Baretto relatives who follow him with demands of solving his murder.  He is conscripted into the adventures of the idle rich, a quartet of young men known as the Tap Dancers.  By this means, Fletch discovers what it means to be Carioca, a native of Rio de Janeiro.

More travelogue than mystery, Fletch is along for the ride.  He spends most of the time complaining that he doesn't understand the culture of Brazil or why he should be expected to solve a murder from long before he was born.  The greatest failing of the book is that it is not Fletch.  Sure, he looks like Fletch and he has the same backstory as Fletch, but he has a completely new personality.  Where Fletch is usually out making things happen, learning what he can, playing aces that the reader doesn't see until the climax, this Fletch let's himself get dragged around and waits to be struck across the face, literally!  The book takes place between Fletch and Confess, Fletch, the two best books of the series.

Skip this one.  Not only was Fletch so unlike himself as to seem a different character, the travelogue was more of a warning to avoid Rio de Janeiro than an advertisement to visit.  I don't think that was the intent, which further diminishes the novel.

Fletch's Fortune

Fletch returns to his Italian villa from the beach and discovers two men waiting inside.  They are CIA agents who want him to attend a journalists' convention in Virginia.  While there, they expect him to plant bugs in all the rooms and record the private conversations.  Of course, Fletch declines.  At which point, they explain that he has not filed taxes - ever - and has a lot of money for an unemployed journalist.  Threats of extradition and jail convince him.  They are particularly interested in recordings of Walter March, the owner of a large number of newspapers and current President of the American Journalism Alliance.  No sooner does Fletch arrive in the United States than he learns that Walter March has been murdered.  Nonetheless, the CIA want him to continue the operation.

Another page-turner in which Fletch must solve a murder, turn the tables on the CIA, resolve his tax issues, avoid a ceremony to receive his Bronze Star, and get back to his villa in Italy.  The book also provides some background for Fletch's time as a reporter in Chicago, introducing a former colleague and the return of Jack Saunders (Confess, Fletch).  It is entertaining to discover that Fletch solves the case while the reader isn't looking.  He does it right in front of us, a simple line, that comes and goes with nary a thought.

Excellent book.  Highly recommended.

Confess, Fletch

Fletch has only just arrived in Boston and is surprised to discover a beautiful naked woman on the floor of his apartment.  She's dead.  After pouring himself a whiskey, he calls the police.  Not the emergency line, since it's no longer an emergency.  Soon, the police arrive.  Detective Flynn notes that Fletch is the obvious suspect.  Fletch agrees, but assures him that he is innocent.  Flynn says it would be so much easier if he would just confess.  Fletch declines.  Flynn takes his word for it and, to the horror of his partner/stenographer, declines to arrest Fletch.

Fletch is in Boston to look for missing paintings.  His would-be father-in-law, an Italian count, was kidnapped and eventually murdered for lack of a ransom payment.  Some years earlier, the count's fortune in paintings was stolen.  Fletch found some clues that a couple of the paintings had been sold through a Boston art dealer.  To complicate matters, his would-be step-mother-in-law, Sylvia, has followed him and demands he not rob her of the paintings when he finds them.  Then his fiancée arrives.

While getting leads on the missing paintings through the art dealer, he must also investigate the murder for which he is the prime suspect.  Though he finds Inspector Flynn a charming fellow, the man has overlooked a number of suspects, from the drunken next-door neighbor, the owner of the apartment, the owner's former wife, and perhaps even the fiancée of the murdered woman.

As with the first book, Fletch proves to be able to win everyone's confidence and elicit all sorts of useful information or convince people to do him favors that aren't always above board.

Truly an outstanding follow up to Fletch.  Flynn proved to be a highlight and had a series of spinoff novels, which I'll have to get around to reading.  Highly recommended.

Fletch

Fletch is lying on the beach when a well-dressed man makes him an offer.  "I want you to kill me."  Fletch is intrigued.  The man says he is dying of cancer and wants to avoid the suffering.  Fletch says, "Sure."  As it happened, Fletch was on the beach to uncover the source of drugs that had been plaguing the area for years.  He is a reporter for the News-Tribune in California and had been posing as a drug addict on the beach for a few weeks.  Not having made much progress on that story, he jumped to investigating the man who wants to be killed.  The story has lots of humor, mostly from Fletch's quirky takes and off-the-wall comments.

As it is Fletch, he can't just have two storylines.  No, his first ex-wife has sent a lawyer to extract alimony from him.  His second ex-wife has also demanded back payment for alimony.  Then there is his editor, an incompetent who only has the position because she is sleeping with the editor-in-chief, who demands that he attend a ceremony to be awarded the Bronze Star that he won in Vietnam.  She thinks it will be a feather in the cap of the paper.

Fletch is a professional at social engineering, able to use tidbits of key knowledge to win the confidence of anyone.  He can step into any setting and immediately set people at ease.  He then proceeds to milk them for information, which they offer willingly with only general steering from Fletch.  Better yet, they find him utterly charming and are eager to invite him for lunch, dinner, or - in the case of ladies - to hop in the sack.

As I had just read Fletch and the Widow Bradley and commented how it wasn't as good as Fletch, I decided to reread it.  I stand by that assessment.  Of note, though written later, the Widow Bradley is a prequel and occurs immediately prior to Fletch.  Gregory McDonald has a quick style that makes for a highly readable novel.  I started the book on Friday and finished on Saturday.  I can't remember the last time I read a book that fast.  Now to watch the Chevy Chase movie again to see how it compares.

Highly recommended.

Fletch and the Widow Bradley

Irwin Maurice "Fletch" Fletcher is at a high-end hotel with a wallet filled with $25,000 in thousand dollar bills.  He found the wallet and decided to return it to the rightful owner.  The wallet had no ID but did have a key for the hotel and the name James St. E. Crandall.  Though he called the room and explained that he had the money, Mr. Crandall never arrived to receive the money.  Fletch, using an alias, informed the hotel manager and sought a home address so he could return the money.  The manager was quite amazed, but could provide no information.  "We will inform the police, Mr. Armistad."  Fletch agreed that was the thing to do and left.  While trying to track down Mr. Crandall, his editor called to say he was fired.

"What did I do?"

Fletch had submitted a financial story - he normally worked sports, but the financial reporter has a broken back - in which he quoted a man who had been dead for a year.  Fletch was absolutely certain that the memos he had reviewed with the company treasurer were initialed by the dead man in the last few weeks.  Something wasn't right and he intended to find out what.  Even so, he was still fired.  Worse yet, the treasurer had suddenly flown to Mexico on an extended vacation.  So begins an investigation into the death of Thomas Bradley.

Despite having $25,000 in his pocket, Fletch romances Moxie Mooney on a shoestring budget.  Moxie, daughter of the acclaimed actor Freddy Mooney, is Fletch's on-again off-again love interest.  As Fletch is unemployed, she wants him to take up acting in her latest play, In Love.  It has nude scenes, but her current lead actor has thick thighs and no charm.  Fletch declines.

While seeking to understand why he was deceived by the company treasurer, Fletch interviews the Widow Bradley, the Bradleys' adult children, neighbors, other employees, Bradley's sister in New York, and more besides.  In many of these conversations, Fletch offers an alias and a bogus profession; he is a rather good actor.

Many of the exchanges are quite comical or just bizarre.  He's entirely unflappable and usually has a quirky reply to questions.  He often disarms those he is interviewing by offering information in an outrageous way.

I suspect I read this book before as I figured out the solution long before Fletch suspected.  Then again, the solution is ho-hum in our modern world, but would have been astonishing when the novel was written (1981).  A friend had read all the Fletch novels and passed several to me back in the 1980s.

A good read, but not as good as either Fletch or Confess, Fletch.  Fun and quick book.