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Book Review: FLETCH (1974) by Gregory McDonald

10/19/2018

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The premise is immediately engaging: the acting manager of a highly profitable aviation company picks up a drifter on the beach, brings him back to his oceanfront property, and states that he’s dying from cancer. He wants the stranger to break into his house in the near future and shoot him with his own gun so his wife can collect the insurance money. The man agrees, and then promptly begins to investigate the rich man’s life. The drifter, it turns out, is a journalist who is working undercover, trying to find the source of a drug supply at the beach that never seems to ebb. (Don’t be concerned over spoilers with this paragraph; the reader learns as much in the first 40 pages of the book.)

Thus begins Fletch, the first of Gregory McDonald’s nine novels featuring quick-thinking, smart-talking News-Tribune journalist Irwin Maurice Fletcher. (The series expands to eleven when you count Son of Fletch (1993) and Fletch Reflected (1994), which spotlight Fletcher’s son Jack.) There’s a lot for fans of noir and comic mystery to enjoy here, and it’s worth noting that the original on-the-page Fletch is more adult – and his story more sophisticated – than his cinematic incarnation in 1985’s Chevy Chase vehicle of the same name.

One difference is that the world McDonald creates for his journalist protagonist has dangers and tragedies large and small; it is a real world with realistic consequences, a place where end-of-the-line junkies are an overdose away from death and the ideas that justice will prevail and the guilty will be punished are not certainties. Another detail is that the humor is not merely there to provide a superficial layer of entertainment akin to a television sitcom or Saturday Night Live sketch, but it is used to define Fletch’s personality and his attitude toward the editors, interview subjects, and ex-wives with whom he must interact. As the reader experiences the story through the third-person limited narrative perspective of Fletch, the reporter’s sarcasm and amusing role-playing ties us to the character and makes it easy to root for him.

McDonald controls the pace nicely, and the “A” story involving Alan Stanwyck and the murder proposition and the “B” story, the search for the beachside drug supplier, alternate smartly before coming together in the final chapter. Frequent readers of contemporary crime and noir novels will likely guess the answers to both story threads before they’re provided, but the journey is still highly enjoyable. 

For me, the most innovative technique in the Fletch books is the journalist variation on the whodunit suspect interview: often using an alias and playing a character – insurance adjuster, property management representative, lawyer – Fletcher questions a person to tease out information about someone else. Often they are phone calls, and McDonald presents these conversations as spare, dialogue-centered exchanges in keeping with an investigative reporter’s transcripts. No adverbial flourishes here, of the “he admitted reluctantly” or “she said with a breathy sigh under her words” variety, and that streamlining of talk is both effectively focused and feels aligned with the spirit of contemporary journalism.

The book does carry more than a whiff of of-its-time sexism and misogyny, as some of the supporting female characters here include clingy ex-wives squeezing Fletch for alimony while still begging for another bedroom tumble with him and women with an axe to grind who are sleeping their way up the ladder, as with Fletch’s newspaper editor and supervisor. (On another note, one alimony lawyer is a homosexual who wears “pants with no pockets” and considers the notion of looking the other way on collection in exchange for sexual favors from the tanned and lean beachcomber.) The most intelligent and sympathetic woman character, Stanwyck’s wife Joan, also winds up sleeping with Fletch, so it’s difficult not to be reminded that this 1970s plotline is very much driven and defined by the male characters that populate it and profit by its schemes.

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Fletch won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best First Novel, and deservedly so. It employs a likeable and quick-witted (and truly active) reporter as its detective protagonist, its style and plotting are solid, logical, and satisfying, and this story has a coda (after the mysteries have concluded) that strikes the perfect endnote. The book could have easily rested as a great stand-alone crime story, but Gregory McDonald soon returned to his charismatic character, delivering Confess, Fletch two years later. I look forward to reading more stories that carry the I.M. Fletcher byline.


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Announcing the MITCHELL MYSTERY READING GROUP!

10/4/2018

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Hello visitors, casual readers, and mystery fans old and new!

Over at The Stone House, my Gladys Mitchell tribute site, I have posted a review and summary for the last title that remained unrepresented in the site's Bibliography section: the historical adventure for young adults called Outlaws of the Border, published in 1936 under Mitchell's pseudonym Stephen Hockaby. That means all 86 novels (66 of them in the Mrs. Bradley series) from the author are accounted for on the site.

To celebrate, I want to sponsor an interactive web project where everyone is invited to read and discuss Gladys Mitchell and one of her books. I am happy to announce the first Mitchell Mystery Reading Group month-long event. Here's how it will work:

I will select an intriguing mystery novel (from which there are many to choose) from the Mrs. Bradley series, and will announce the title four weeks before the group reading begins. The book I chose for next month's inaugural reading is GM's second published novel THE MYSTERY OF A BUTCHER'S SHOP from 1929. Why that one? It's available in reprint or as an eBook (through Vintage UK or Thomas & Mercer in the U.S.) and older print editions (from Sphere and Rue Morgue Press) are also around. And while Speedy Death, which introduced the detective with the eldritch cackle, has much to recommend, it is Butcher's Shop where I first see Gladys Mitchell's strengths as an imaginative and inventive writer on full display.
Every Wednesday in November, I will be publishing a blog post discussing six chapters from the 24-chapter book: 

Wed. November 7 will be dedicated to Chapters One ("Inconsiderate Behaviour of a Passenger to America") to Six ("Thursday")
Wed. November 14, Chapters Seven ("The Tale of a Head") to 12 ("The Inspector Has His Doubts")
Wed. November 21, Chapters 13 ("Margery Barnes") to 18 ("The Man in the Woods")
Wed. November 28, Chapters 19 ("The Skull") to 24 ("The Murderer")*
*we will have to tread lightly to minimize spoilers

I invite everyone -- seasoned Mrs. Bradley fans, new readers, and everybody in between -- to be a part of the discussion of this lively mystery tale. You can participate by sending your observations and comments via email by midnight the Monday prior to the blog post. I'm interested to hear and learn what struck you upon reading that specific section. What engaged you? Surprised you? Made you say, "That's not the way Christie would do it"? Plot, characters, pacing, tone, textual turns of phrase, themes and ideas that GM will continue in other books: all thoughts on all elements are welcome, in praise or in criticism. 

As moderator, I will incorporate the received email replies into each week's post and offer the comments -- with editing, for flow -- as a way to connect themes and start a group conversation. Ideally, I am looking for a few lines to a few paragraphs of your thoughts, as space in the column will be limited. When sending me your observations through email, briefly tell me how you wish to be identified on the blog post: "Sarah" or "Sarah T." or "Sarah from UK" or whatever you choose. (And if you run a blog with a mystery/literary theme or content, let me know that too and include a link!) Readers are also welcome to continue the book discussion through the blog's reply function if they wish.

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I know many will not want to stretch out the reading of a book over a month, and that's fine. Just make sure your submitted comments connect with the chapters under discussion, and hold observations of later book/chapter points until we get there. The idea is that people can tune in weekly to read the updates and they won't have to worry about spoilers regarding future chapters. 

And if you prefer to use this Mitchell Mystery Reading Group event to read (or reread) The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop and choose not to send comments, that's fine too. But the more the merrier, and I'm excited to communicate with readers as we explore the strange goings-on in the village of Wandles Parva, in tandem with that unique elderly detective Mrs. Beatrice Lestrange Bradley and her ingenious creator Gladys Mitchell.


Email me at [email protected] your response to Chapters One to Six by Monday, November 5 at midnight! I'll send out a reminder post in late October as well. 
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