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scott_h_119 's review for:
Fletch
by Gregory McDonald
First of all, I’m not a fan (or detractor) of the movie version of Fletch. I find early Chevy Chase movies funny, but in his work this century he comes off kind of a jerk. YMMV. Personally, I’ve heard Jason Sudekis’ name used in connection with a reboot, and frankly his voice fits the character, even if he’s a little older than the I.M. Fletcher depicted on the page.
But enough about that. The book is a neo-noir take on the detective genre, even if the title character is really a newspaper reporter instead of a private dick. There are two somewhat interconnected mysteries in play here. I never felt that the author was intentionally misleading or over-indulgent in red herrings. It’s all there if you want to solve it ahead of Fletch, and it’s pretty enjoyable to get to the end. The prose is mostly dialogue, leaving the reader to fill in the blanks about what’s really going on between the lines. In short, I liked it.
I honestly thought I had read this as much as thirty years ago. I know I bought it then because I was fascinated by how the story started right there on the cover. But being that the spine was pristine when I started reading it, and it’s cracked all to hell now having read it, I’m pretty sure I didn’t read it before now. Which is a shame. It won’t take me thirty years to get to the follow-up, “Confess, Fletch.”
But enough about that. The book is a neo-noir take on the detective genre, even if the title character is really a newspaper reporter instead of a private dick. There are two somewhat interconnected mysteries in play here. I never felt that the author was intentionally misleading or over-indulgent in red herrings. It’s all there if you want to solve it ahead of Fletch, and it’s pretty enjoyable to get to the end. The prose is mostly dialogue, leaving the reader to fill in the blanks about what’s really going on between the lines. In short, I liked it.
I honestly thought I had read this as much as thirty years ago. I know I bought it then because I was fascinated by how the story started right there on the cover. But being that the spine was pristine when I started reading it, and it’s cracked all to hell now having read it, I’m pretty sure I didn’t read it before now. Which is a shame. It won’t take me thirty years to get to the follow-up, “Confess, Fletch.”