Fletch's Fortune

What a romp! Fletch is in fine form! Dan John Miller is an excellent narrator. He really picked us up and carried us away on this fun fantasy. Good mystery, clever telling with the tape recorder doing the interviews. And as always Fletch has everyone bamboozled!

I am very glad that I am re-reading this series because I feel like I was pretty young when I read it the first time, and I had no idea whether my older self would find the same pleasure in it. Not because I have become more discerning - just because I have become older. In any case the verdict is yay for re-reading and yay for my tastes remaining rock solid on the Fletch front. This one was not a favorite but as everybody knows, you can't win 'em all.

Fletch attends a journalists conference in rural Virginia. At first he believes he is being coerced into going by the CIA but comes to doubt that. The conference is kicked off by the murder of its president who is stabbed in the back with a scissors. The victim has many enemies among the attendees. Fletch figures out who did the deed in his usual relaxed way. The other characters add a lot of interest as well and there are references to prior stories on the series.

Snappy dialogue, murder, sex, and Fletch could pretty much describe every Gregory McDonald novel I've read to date. McDonald doesn't waste time on providing much else and for a quick, entertaining read, you don't need anything more.

Fletch' Fortune is MacDonald's tribute to the age-old tradition of hotel murder mystery weekends where a bunch of people at an out-of the-way hotel usually in the Catskills get together, one is murdered, and everyone has a motive and is a suspect. Throw in the CIA, a little blackmail, and a bunch of piranhas known as journalists, and you have a story. Or do you? It is filled with clever, snarky dialogue, but way too much meaningless banter. It's a snoozefest and rather boring.

Fletch books are not very long so therefore, not very deep. They all follow a similar structure. A good mix of humor and plot twists.

In this selection, the president of the nationwide journalist association has been murdered. Fletch is coerced into attending, and is forced to spy on attendees. Of course, Fletch gets to the truth of everything.