Fletch Reflected

Unbelievably bad in every way. If McDonald's editor wasn't out for cocktails on the money from the first umpteen books in this series, he would have had a fit over some of these sentences. The invention at the center of the billionaire's fortune is both overemphasized and under-explained. B plot is bizarre and unconnected. More time spent describing the contents of the grocery store and the layout of the town square than the motives of the murderer. Author has clearly never met an actual human woman of any description.

Since I couldn't bear to put it back in the bookshelf next to the other actual books, and it would feel wrong to inflict it on another human, it has been recycled with the morning paper. You're welcome, world.

There. Now I've finished the eleven Fletch's. Note to self: just because the first two in a series are brilliant doesn't mean the next nine will be. Love how they are non-sequential and dialogue driven, but the suspension of disbelief was burdensome.

The Fletch books used to be entertaining and funny. Not any more, sadly. "Fletch Reflected" covers Fletch's son Jack's investigation into the man who invented a mirror that doesn't invert reflections so you see yourself the way others see you.

Fletch's son Jack is stuck a great reflection of him, even though they didn't know each other until now.

The idea of them being farther and son is not forced, and just feels right. This is a favorite.

Fletch' son Jack investigates attempts on life of wealthy scientist who invented "perfect mirror' and keeps family in lovely but controlled compound.

From Publishers Weekly Marked by Mcdonald's offhand humor ("I can't figure out whether Wyoming is big or just empty") and offbeat characters, the 11th Fletch story features a finale that is not so much a resolution as a deflation, like a spent balloon. Fletch's son Jack, having sold his story/expose of rightwing crazies to Global Cable News (see Son of Fletch), heads to the huge Georgia estate of billionaire inventor Chester Radleigh at the request of Shana Steufel, an old, but memorable, one-night stand of Jack's. Shana, who is engaged to one of Radleigh's sons, believes her future father-in-law's life is in danger. Jack gets a groundkeeper's job at the estate, which is run like a benevolent dictatorship. Meanwhile, Fletch pere is show more planning to have Jack's mother Crystal lose 400-plus pounds at a Wyoming training camp for boxers. While probing the dysfunctional Radliegh family, in which the spoiled wife and four grown children rebel in individual ways, Jack finds snakes under every rock and psyche. Then Fletch appears at the estate and triggers the sorry ending. Fletch and his newly discovered son Jack are an appealing pair in need of a better plot.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Irvin Fletcher, redoubtable antihero of the Fletch novels, has a son named Jack, who was introduced in Son of Fletch (1993). Jack has just completed an expos{‚}e of a redneck cult--he's an investigative reporter just like Dad--when he gets a call from an old lover, Shana Steufel. She and Jack had a meaningful relationship one weekend, and now's she's going to marry the son of the billionaire inventor of a mirror that allows you to see yourself as others do. The inventor, Chester Radleigh, is eccentric and lives on a secluded estate with many family members, associates, and domestics. Shana is worried because there have been accidents lately involving Radleigh that could have been fatal. Would Jack investigate? No one on the estate is even borderline normal, and everyone has a potential motive for wanting the patriarch dead. Jack, in the guise of a summer pool hand, engages each in witty exchanges of dialogue, fraught with cryptic meaning. The Fletch novels have always offered a unique mix of suspense and cartoonish characterizations. The son of Fletch continues the family tradition. Wes Lukowsky show less