Book Details
| Title: | Fletch Won | |
| Author: | Gregory Mcdonald | |
| Times Read: | 1 | |
| Last Read: | 12.20.24 |
Other Books Read By This Author (7)
- Carioca Fletch
- Confess, Fletch
- Fletch
- Fletch and the Man Who
- Fletch and the Widow Bradley
- Fletch's Fortune
- Fletch's Moxie
| Date Read | Note |
| 12.20.24 | The 8th Fletch book. This one takes it back all the way to the beginning when Fletch was a young upstart as a reporter and presumably his first big story. The mystery is fitting, back to form with the other books to satisfy Mcdonald's constant readers who wanted another installment, so much so that I think the only reason why it's a prequel is due to why Fletch was investigating to begin with. Fletch-with-money is kinda beyond that now that he's hanging out with famous actors and on the campaign trail and whatnot, so going back to where he's gotta work for a living checks that motive box for him. I actually appreciated the lack of foundational import this book held. I feel like usually with a prequel the author feels compelled to explain root causes behind character traits or quirks that I find mostly better left mysterious. The most egregious example that comes to mind is making Boba Fett's dad the DNA of the entire clone army in Star Wars. Instead, this book could fit nearly anywhere in the Fletch timeline except he's about to get married to his first ex-wife and he's new to his job and his lawyer buddy Alston is also new to his job. For being book 8, I found this pleasantly surprising. The core mystery loop of murder, talking to all the oddball suspects, fletch figuring it out before we do, revealing the killer still works. I had a fun time reading this and it flew by. My one kinda-sorta complaint is that the rough edges in Fletch's character circa the first book aren't back in this one. I kinda understand with getting older, getting money, he'd smooth out a bit but in the first book he's sleeping with a 15-year old junkie, having cheated on 2 ex wives. Here he's flirty with his fiance but hesitant to take an assignment on a brothel. Maybe if I red the books on release my memory of the first few would be more distant but since everything's pretty fresh it struck me as out of character. A more mid-80s sensibility vs. late 70s. Other than that though, I liked this pretty good. Only 3 more!!! |
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