Books: Fletch and the Widow Bradley (1981)

"When Fletch finds a wallet with $25,000 in cash inside, he doesn’t realize it’s the last piece of good luck he’s going to see for a while. Because when he calls in to the News-Tribune, he discovers a story he’s written is causing quite a sensation, and not the good kind. He might just be out of a job permanently. If Tom Bradley, the chairman of Wagnall-Phipps and one of Fletch’s principal sources, and not incidentally, the source of his paper’s embarrassment, is dead, who’s been signing his name to company documents, and why doesn’t the company treasurer seem to know? If he’s alive, how come his widow, Enid, has Tom’s ashes on the mantel? Fletch may have more questions than answers on his hands, but he knows he’s a pretty good reporter, and if he’s going to get his reputation back, not to mention his job, he’s going to have to get to the bottom of more than one mystery."

While Fletch and the Widow Bradley is Gregory McDonald’s fourth book in the series, it’s actually the third book in its chronological order. Here Fletch is around 24, young, divorced (wife Linda, whom does not jam with wife Barbara from books 8 & 9, which are set before the original 1974 novel) and one assumes the author knows you'll be clever enough to figure this out. It is a fun book, in many ways, and while I did not pick-up a few signs of where this book was headed (as certain reviews pointed out), I think it’s a pretty brilliant twist for a book released in 1981 (it, strangely, very prescient to what is happening in the world today). The entire book is full of twists and turns, and that great Fletch wit and dialog. I’ve read McDonald grew more conservative as he aged, but I find that surprising here as this book is so progressive. And again, it was written in 1981!