Books: Fletch Won By Gregory McDonald (1985)

 Gregory McDonald was a teacher before becoming a journalist for the Boston Globe in 1966. Though he published his first novel in 1964, it wasn’t until the 1970s that he really began his writing career. He quit the Globe in 1973 and in 1974 published Fletch, the first of nine novels revolving around ex-marine and journalist I.M. Fletcher. In 1985, Fletch was adapted into a movie with Chevy Chase playing the irreverent investigative reporter. Chase would reprise his role in the 1989 sequel Fletch Lives (an original story, though). In Confess, Fletch, Mcdonald also introduced his second signature protagonist, Inspector Francis Xavier Flynn, a brilliant but eccentric Boston Police homicide detective who served as a foil for Fletch. Flynn would go on to appear in four of his own spin-off novels. Also, McDonald attempted to spin-off Fletch with a series focusing on his illegitimate son Jack (Jack’s Story and Jack and The Perfect Mirror), but his publisher threatened to renege on contracts if McDonald did not agree to use the ironical name "Fletch" in the titles. While those two books feature Fletch, he is not the main character. In the mid-1980s, he moved to Tennessee. There, he bought an antebellum farm and became involved in local politics. He died at his home from prostate cancer in September of 2008.

While Fletch Won (a double meaning pun that took me too long to figure out) is the 8^th novel in the series, it effectively serves as a prequel, where Fletch has only been at the News-Tribune as a junior reporter for a short time and Frank (his editor) is losing respect for his new employee. Frank moves Fletch to a different section of the newspaper more than once, but Fletch continues to cause trouble. When Fletch is to run the story of local lawyer Donald Habeck, who requests an interview in order to announce that he is giving 5 million dollars to a local museum, the lawyer turns up dead in the News-Tribune parking lot. Unsurprisingly Frank takes Fletch off the story and gives it to an experienced reporter who has been with the paper for years. Fletch is now charged with investigating a whorehouse—which he does. However, he is not about to give up on the Habeck story, the circumstances of which seem mighty suspicious, especially when Fletch starts to suspect that the legal firm Habeck worked for is one of the most crooked firms around.

This book, along with a lot of McDonald’s works, is comprised mostly of dialogue for the characterization, drama, wit, and even action. As a self-described post-cinematic writer, he believed that readers have been exposed to so many images through movies so he found long, descriptive passages are unnecessary to set scenes, so while this fast and clean narrative style was ahead of its time, he’s still contemporary to the era. There are some funny passages here, some deep wit, with obvious underlying social commentary (comparing a law practice with an escort service can be beneficial) peppered among the sharp jokes and sardonic dialogue. 

As noted, Fletch Won is a prequel, set sometime before the first book, and released in 1985. He continued this theme with Fletch, Too a year later. However, in 1981 he wrote Fletch and the Widow Bradley, which is also set before the first book, but after Fletch Won and Fletch, Too. Also, 1984's Carioca Fletch is set between the first book and the second book, 1976s Fletch, Confess. However, McDonald never went out of his way to tell his readers that the series was not being published in chronological order -he apparently felt his fans would figure all of this by themselves. 

While I did read the first Fletch book back in 1985 (and I think the first Flynn book), I decided to revisit the series and read them in chronological order instead of published order.