Gregory McDonald

[Pulpmeister]

There are a lot of writers called Macdonald/McDonald, (Hi there, John D; Hi there Ross), and one of them is Gregory McDonald, 1937-2008.

He didn't have a large output, but there are one or two zingers in the bunch.

He is best known for "Fletch", the first novel in the "Fletch" series, in which we meet slick-talking Irwin Maurice Fletcher, newspaperman, who while undercover as a beach bum investigating drug dealing, gets involved in a complicated extortion and murder plot and talks his way through and around it. Written mostly in dialogue.

And it was filmed, with Chevy Chase; not my ideal choice for the role.

The next "Fletch" was and is, in my view, the best of the series: "Confess, Fletch" In this story Fletch, now calling himself Peter Fletcher, (“Wouldn’t you, Inspector, if your first names were Irwin Maurice?") arrives in Boston, staying in an exchange apartment; goes to dinner; comes back and finds a dead naked girl in the living room. He calls the cops through the police switchboard.

“Sergeant, this is Mister Fletcher, 152 Beacon Street, apartment 6B.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s a murdered girl in my living room.”
“A what girl?”
“Murdered.”
...
“This is the Police Business phone.”
“Isn’t murder police business?”
“You’re supposed to call Emergency with a murder.”
“I think the emergency is over.”

The cop in charge of the investigation is Inspector Flynn, a very large Irishman. And off we go; Flynn is as colourful and talkative and slick as Fletch, and the two bouncing off each other is great fun. In my opinion this is by far the best of the "Fletch" series, with a wonderfully complicated plot, lots of people telling each other lies, Fletch adopting several different personalities, a more or less dead Italian count, his rampant widow, and a palazzo stripped of its valuable art treasures.

McDonald gradually filled in the Fletch saga with out-of sequence books such as "Fletch Won", with is the prequel to "Fletch"; and "Carioca Fletch", which fits between "Fletch" and "Confess Fletch".

A little later comes "Fletch's Moxie," having a similar plot to "Confess Fletch", and involving an impossible crime; a man stabbed to death during a live broadcast from a movie location in Florida.

Of the Fletch novels, I have read:

Fletch (1974)
Confess Fletch (1976)
Fletch's Fortune (1978)
Fletch and the Widow Bradley (1981)
Fletch's Moxie (1982)
Carioca Fletch (1984)
Fletch Won (1985)

(The movie "Fletch Lives" with Chevy Chase was a flop; it was not based on any of Gregory McDonald's books.)

McDonald also wrote a series of novels of Flynn by himself, plus a handful of stand-alones. Of the Flynns, I have only read "Flynn", and I have never read any of the stand alones.

But if you haven't read "Confess Fletch", do so. Now. And you don't need to read "Fletch" first.

[Apache]

I actually liked the Flynn books over the Fletch books.
Apache

[ZodWallop]

I've always meant to read the Fletch books.

I will confess, I love the Fletch movies, both of them. It was nice to see R. Lee Ermey play against character in Fletch Lives.

At one point, Kevin Smith was supposed to adapt Fletch Won with Jason Lee as Fletch. I wish that had happened.