Book Details
| Title: | Fletch and the Man Who | |
| Author: | Gregory Mcdonald | |
| Times Read: | 1 | |
| Last Read: | 11.25.24 |
Other Books Read By This Author (7)
- Carioca Fletch
- Confess, Fletch
- Fletch
- Fletch and the Widow Bradley
- Fletch Won
- Fletch's Fortune
- Fletch's Moxie
| Date Read | Note |
| 11.25.24 | The sixth Fletch book. This one follows Fletch as he somehow becomes press liaison on a presidential primary campaign. But there's been a murder at the hotel the same night the governor candidate stays there so Fletch has a murder to solve as well as dealing with press from the side of "the establishment." One thing I noted after reading the last book about how difficult it is to keep generating believable scenarios for Fletch to be in and solve murder mysteries proves true here. I get and kinda liked the early 80s Mcdonald take on political campaigns but found it hard to believe Fletch would say yes to that job. Mcdonald explains it by having the campaign manager be a war buddy that Fletch is doing a favor for, but having him in any sort of management role doesn't fit his character at all. I suspect Mcdonald thought it would be a fun topic to write about and that was that. I get the sense that these books were pulp paperbacks, I'm not sure how popular or successful they were on release. Fletch also makes a point of saying multiple times that he sucks at the job but still... can you really picture him making copies of daily schedules? On the flip side, this also read as perhaps the most typical murder mystery in the series to date. There's a list of suspects, some are given motive, others are red herrings, and in the end when the killer is revealed it could be any of three maybe four characters until they're named. I enjoyed aspects of the campaign like the press bus and characters there but found the actual political conversations a bit tiring. Fletch's and by extension the candidate's big idea is how "new technology" is bringing the world closer together. I'm not sure circa-1983 what that new tech would be - very early Internet? fax machines? Apple 2e's? - but from a 2024 perspective it feels vague and naive, like something my parents would've said about myspace. So I'm pretty deep in the series now. I will say that, thanks to how Mcdonald so far has chosen big framing devices like a political campaign, all the titles stand out distinctly in my mind (which I could not say about Michael Connelly). I'd also say that I would put this somewhere in the middle in terms of ranking by my enjoyment. I'm sure I'll do a full list in my notes on the last book but for now I feel like I still liked it more than Widow Bradley but not as much as the others. |
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