Book Review: Fletch Reflected by Gregory Mcdonald

Character

Oddly, even after two books with Jack as a character, there isn’t very much differentiation between he and a young Fletch. I do feel like he’s a bit more reserved and not quite as ascerbic in his humor, but there’s just something missing to make him a completely differentiated character. I had missed Crystal, so it was nice to have her back, but she didn’t seem to have the same sort of spark or confidence, which I missed from her earlier appearance in Fletch’s Fortune. Fletch himself seems to have slowed down a bit, but he also wasn’t taking the lead in this either. I don’t think there was a single adverse reference to Irwin Maurice by Fletch in the entire text, yet there was one neutral to positive mention of it by Fletch, followed by a questioning disparagement of it by Jack.

I did like the Mortimer character and his long time hatred for Fletch, though some of the dialogue read/played more comedic than as a more appropriate brewing hatred. There is some scant background about Mortimer’s character and past with Fletch, but it could potentially play out as another entire Fletch backstory in itself. Without a really well motivated plot, I’m not sure I’d want to read that prequel though.

Plot

There is only the slightest of pauses between this book and the prior Son of Fletch. Except for the denouement of action in the prior book, this one simply picks up with what’s happening on the following day. Unlike most in the Fletch series where the plot gets off like a shot on page one or page two, the motivation for the major plot of the book doesn’t drop until about a fifth of the way in. Also different from most in the series, this book has a primary plot which follows Jack while there’s a secondary plot following Fletch and Crystal. I presume that Mcdonald meant for the two books about Jack to be a spin-off of sorts and so maybe he was changing the model a bit?

While I appreciated the close out of what Fletch did to help Crystal after the last installment and the Mortimer character did provide some entertainment, I could have done without the B plot here. I’d have preferred more action with Jack and maybe even Fletch on the “compound”. There is an interesting juxtaposition between the compounds of the last book and this book in terms of their functions and socioeconomic statuses within the two works.

The ultimate murder of Radleigh was unfulfilling though Fletch did get a few nice rejoinders as a result. The ending nearly mimiced the all-too-quick wind down of Son of Fletch and was generally underwhelming for me. I suspect the general problem with the piece overall, was that Jack didn’t really have to work too hard at hiding himself and wasn’t directly in danger at all during the entire piece which left some of the suspense out. Leaving all of the suspense on Radleigh’s shoulders just didn’t do enough for me.

Summary

While relatively entertaining, this is one of the least interesting and motivated stories in the Fletch canon. I’d rank it toward the bottom of the pantheon, though it was at least more fun to read than Fletch Too, which was just painful.

Reading Progress

• 08/7/16 marked as: want to read; “The Rio Olympics reminded me that I’d gotten Carioca Fletch to read back in the 80’s and never got around to it, so I thought I’d come back and revisit the series.”
• 12/04/16 started reading
• 12/06/16 11.0% done
• 12/07/16 12.0% done
• 12/09/16 14.0% done
• 12/18/16 22.0% done
• 12/19/16 49.0% done; “This one immediately follows Son of Fletch, literally by few hours. It didn’t start out with the same type of bang that most of the Fletch series has, instead it was about 20% into the story before we knew quite what ride we were on. Now that’s it’s going, it’s as interesting as most Fletch tales.”
• 12/20/16 78.0% done
• 12/22/16 100.0% done; “I think this was the first (and only) in the Fletch series with an A and a B plot going on simultaneously. There wasn’t as much mystery or whodunnit as past books despite the number of suspects in something like Fletch’s Fortune. The ending was relatively interesting and certainly unexpected. I wouldn’t say it was very satisfying. I’d rank this one toward the bottom of the series overall.”

Highlights, Quotes, & Marginalia

“I know your name is Jack Faoni. The weekend we spent together you had me call you Fletch.”

Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 1:02:47 AM

“We didn’t do all that much talking, as I remember. We went at each other like bear cubs.”

Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 1:04:53 AM

🔖 Bookmark on Location 68
Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 1:14:22 AM

“Chester Radliegh. He invented the perfect mirror.”
“Oh, yeah. The guy who straightened out our left from our right, right from left when we look at ourselves in a mirror.”

Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 3:34:12 PM

“Boxers appreciate his mirror, too.”
“They do?”
“They don’t get blindsided so much these days. Haven’t you noticed?”
“Guess I haven’t.”
“More fights go the whole ten, fifteen rounds now.”
“Is that good?”
“Think of the philosophical, psychological, to say nothing of poetic ramifications of the perfect mirror. I mean, for centuries we were seeing ourselves wrong, weren’t we? Not as others saw us, as they say.”
“Do we ever, anyway?”

Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 3:35:06 PM

“Oh. You called to invite me to your wedding? I’ll send a present. Shreds of my flannel shirt, as a keepsake, or a dust-cloth, whichever you need the more.”

Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 3:35:57 PM

“This place is so big, there are so many people wandering around, you wouldn’t even be noticed.”
“Yeah, I do a pretty good imitation of a potted palm.”

Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 3:37:09 PM

“…Sounds homey enough. Does it come complete with pricks?”
“Homey enough if your last name is Windsor.”

Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 3:40:22 PM

“What did you say your relationship is with Mister Fletcher?”
“Relationship?” Jack would be damned before he would state his “relationship” with the member of the Board of Directors of Global Cable News, Consulting/Contributing Editor Irwin Maurice Fletcher.

Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 3:45:18 PM

“Things are tight here now, Jack. There’s so much competition in this business. We have difficulty, you see, in persuading all American businesses they should spend as much as eighty percent of their gross income on advertising. A few still resist the idea.”

Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 3:48:01 PM

wallahs

Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 3:49:18 PM

“I know what I’ve heard. One never knows what’s true.”
“One doesn’t?” Jack’s mouth was dry. “Isn’t that what this business is about?”

Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 3:49:42 PM

“As a journalist, never be the rooster who believes it is only his crowing which brings up the sun.”

Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 3:52:32 PM

“But gee, Dad, it really crimps the vanity, you know? I coulda been a see-leb-pretty.”

Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 3:54:36 PM

“What are you going to do now that GCN has given you your walking papers?”
“Visit an old girlfriend in Georgia.”
“How close an old girlfriend?”
“She’s getting married. To someone else.”
“The best kind.”

Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 3:56:07 PM

“Why? Doesn’t sound like there’s a story there.”
“Does there always have to be a story?”
“You’ve got to keep yourself in Pepsi and pizza, boy.”

Added on Sunday, December 4, 2016 3:56:42 PM

“‘To collect characters for the long ride,’” Jack quoted.
“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say at this point?”

Added on Tuesday, December 6, 2016 1:59:01 AM

“How is Carrie?”
“Didn’t I just say? She’s crazy. She likes you. She loves me.”

Added on Tuesday, December 6, 2016 2:00:27 AM

“Just wanted you to know where I’ll be,” Jack said. “Tell my mother, please.”
“Sure,” Fletch said, turning the van left at the intersection. “Call if you find work.”

Added on Tuesday, December 6, 2016 2:00:33 AM

“Blair didn’t give you a job?”
“He gave me what he called ‘fatherly advice,’ to wit: get lost.”

Added on Tuesday, December 6, 2016 2:01:42 AM

🔖 Bookmark on Location 426
Added on Tuesday, December 6, 2016 2:03:09 AM

She was an enormous mound of mostly useless flesh in an outsized nightgown and bathrobe.

Added on Wednesday, December 7, 2016 1:44:38 AM

“What did he say to you?” Fletch smiled.
“He told me to be careful not to let you fall on me again.”
After looking at Fletch a moment from the bed, Crystal laughed. “This time, I’d crush you to death.”
“Flatter than a manhole cover.”

Added on Wednesday, December 7, 2016 1:46:01 AM

“You’re back like the second half of a hurricane on a seaside resort!”

Added on Wednesday, December 7, 2016 1:46:53 AM

coaxial sword

Added on Wednesday, December 7, 2016 1:48:21 AM

“…One thing I absolutely will not do for you is serve as your pallbearer. We’ll have to plant you with a crane.”

Added on Wednesday, December 7, 2016 1:50:00 AM

“I have done something about it.”
“What have you done? Send out for Chinese?”

Added on Wednesday, December 7, 2016 1:50:23 AM

“Crystal, the public cannot afford you. Not you and schools and the police and fire departments, too.”

Added on Friday, December 9, 2016 12:59:19 AM

“Mortimer.”
“Hi, Mister Mortimer. This is Fletch.”
“Who?”
“I. M. Fletcher.”
“Oh, no.”
“Did I call you at a bad time?”
“Yeah. I am not dead yet.”
“How have you been otherwise?” Fletch was using the phone in the handicap van. He had not left the front driveway of Blythe Spirit.
“Well enough to hang up on you.”
“Oh, don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I might have something interesting to say.”
“You always do. That’s why I’m hanging up. I’m too old to be interested in anything you have to say.”
“Come on, now.”
“Last time I listened to you is how I got so old.

Added on Friday, December 9, 2016 1:00:24 AM

“…I’d rather be in jail. I would have known what I was doing in jail. What am I doing in Wyoming? There would have been more people I know in jail. We would have had a lot to talk about. I don’t know anybody in Wyoming. All the people here talk about is something they call beef cattle and the twelve deadly sins.”
“Seven.”
“Seven what?”
“I think it’s considered there are only seven deadly sins.”
“In Wyoming, they got twelve.”
“It is a big state.” “I can’t figure out whether Wyoming is big or just empty.”

Added on Friday, December 9, 2016 1:02:33 AM

“… Tell them all about my great life spent watching the mountains in Wyoming not move.”

Added on Friday, December 9, 2016 1:04:14 AM

“Beef cattle. Two legged beef cattle. That’s all they have out here: beef cattle. Four legged beef cattle, two legged beef cattle.”

Added on Sunday, December 18, 2016 2:08:33 PM

“… The other one, the sixteen year old, Ricky, actually thinks his muscles are pretty, if you’d believe it.”
“Doesn’t every sixteen year old?”
“The only opponent that interests him is in the mirror. And he likes him too much to get close. Even though they’re both wearing deodorant. Can you believe that? Ever hear of a boxer who insists on wearing underarm in the ring?”

Added on Sunday, December 18, 2016 2:09:35 PM

Crystal asked, “Where are you taking me?”
“Wyoming.” There was a long pause. “Fletch? Is that you, Fletch?”
“You were expecting Charon maybe?”

Added on Sunday, December 18, 2016 2:11:37 PM

“You can see out the windows. Nice scenery?”
“Yeah. The back of billboards.”
“All the fronts say is KEEP AMERICA BEAUTIFUL.”

Added on Sunday, December 18, 2016 2:12:58 PM

“I see. And you’re not much on farm laboring, I expect. It’s dry work, all right. I escaped a farm when I was a kid.” The man slapped the side of his stomach. “I wanted to wear a white shirt and have a gut.” He laughed. “See? I’m a success!”

Added on Sunday, December 18, 2016 2:15:52 PM

“Is this The Magic Kingdom?” Jack asked the blue-and-white uniformed guard.
“You almost got it right,” the guard said. “You got a pass?”
“Yeah.” Jack handed the guard his laminated pass. “Winnie the Pooh dropped his.”

Added on Sunday, December 18, 2016 2:19:22 PM

He had entered the sort of world God might have created if He had money, to use an old wheeze.

Added on Sunday, December 18, 2016 2:20:27 PM

“You count that as three possible attempts on his life.”
“There was a fourth, this morning.

Added on Sunday, December 18, 2016 2:31:07 PM

🔖 Bookmark on Location 883
Added on Monday, December 19, 2016 10:11:19 AM

“Is modern man ever more relaxed than when whizzing along a highway at the speed of a hurricane?”

Added on Monday, December 19, 2016 10:12:00 AM

“Chester Radliegh lives in Georgia.”
“Ah, the state that originally banned lawyers. And slavery. First came the lawyers. Then slavery. Things haven’t changed much since.”

Added on Monday, December 19, 2016 10:12:41 AM

“His family always had been in either the ministry or banking.”
“There’s a difference?”

Added on Monday, December 19, 2016 10:13:52 AM

Thanks for your work, my good man. I’ll practice ’Git Along Little Dogies’ so I can sing it for you next time. In the key of Lee Marvin.”

Added on Monday, December 19, 2016 10:20:07 AM

“Radliegh,” Crystal said after the van had gone another ten miles. “First he creates the perfect mirror, then he tries to create the perfect image. The first was scientifically possible—”
“And the second,” Fletch said, “is a goose’s chase.”

Added on Monday, December 19, 2016 10:20:35 AM

“Plants; weeds,” she continued muttering at the soil: “Just like children.” She pinched a dead leaf off an azalea. “Nurture some plants beautifully, give them everything they want and need, and some of them just curl up ugly. Beat some weeds to death and they just keep popping up, growing, proliferating. If we had genuine respect for character, we’d cultivate weeds and send the plants to mulch.”

Added on Monday, December 19, 2016 10:21:38 AM

“I don’t even want to go to heaven,” Mrs. Houston said as she dug her fingers into the soil, “unless they have some work for me to do there.”

Added on Monday, December 19, 2016 10:23:11 AM

“For sure, you’re the sickest thing I ever saw in a health store.”

Added on Monday, December 19, 2016 10:53:29 AM

While they talked, Fletch picked up all the wastepaper from their store-bought dinner and placed it in a nearby rubbish bin. Whether the American people realize it or not, Fletch thought, we are eating our trees.

Added on Monday, December 19, 2016 1:00:39 PM

I swanee down the back.”

Added on Monday, December 19, 2016 1:28:23 PM

🔖 Bookmark on Location 1959
Added on Monday, December 19, 2016 1:28:58 PM

🔖 Bookmark on Location 2141
Added on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 7:09:55 PM

“… Most people, I figure, never do anything unusual, they just go along with whatever it is, mediocrity, corruption, because they can’t stand the idea of being unique, alone, isolated.”

Added on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 7:28:33 PM

“There are gay members of Congress now.”
“Not from Georgia. Not at this time, there aren’t,” Shana said. “Sodomy laws have been removed from the books so recently here you can still see the dust from the eraser.”

Added on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 7:37:16 PM

“What happens to a black hole when it disappears?” Radliegh smiled. “You mean, what happens to the information within?”
“I don’t know what I mean.”
“It would be fun if it elongated into a line so narrow that its cut length would be a speck so small it might be invisible.”
“Why would that be fun?” Jack asked.
“Because it might help define the indefinite we’re prone to think of as the infinite.”

Added on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 10:26:20 PM

“Your grandmother, the defective novelist,” Fletch said.

Added on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 10:30:28 PM

“So pleased to meet you, Doctor Fletcher.”
“No doctor at all,” Fletch said. “Not even a patient. Call me Irwin.”
“Irwin?” Jack muttered. “Since when Irwin?”

Added on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 10:30:58 PM

Enjoying the flora and fauna of the garden paths, Fletch said, “Gridlock in paradise. Could it be otherwise? I’ve always suspected Adam and Eve sinned out of pure boredom.”

Added on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 10:34:00 PM

“You must not spend all night every night reading. Man does not live by literature alone. You need sleep.”

Added on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 10:40:12 PM

Mortimer answered the phone. “Hello? Oh, my God, it’s that Fletcher bird. I thought we got rid of you, Fletcher. Please at least tell me you’ve left the state of Wyoming?”
“I’ve left the state,” Fletch said.
“That’s the best thing I’ve heard about Wyoming since I’ve been here—you’ve left.”

Added on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 10:40:47 PM

“I seem to remember you on the ground, on your back.”
“I tripped.”
“That’s what Schmeling said.”
“What happened to gratitude?”
“It came in last in the last race at Hialeah. Hasn’t been heard from since.”

Added on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 10:42:06 PM

“… She’s waiting for a mare to drop her filly.”
“Why would a Mayor drop cream cheese?”

Added on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 10:44:18 PM

🔖 Bookmark on Location 3117
Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 1:48:37 AM

Fletch said, “I killed Chester Radliegh.”

Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 1:49:30 AM

“Tell me the one about why the turtle crossed the road.”
“To get to the Shell station.”

Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 1:49:46 AM

“… An obdurate man, no matter how brilliant, is an idiot.”

Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 1:50:19 AM

“Doctor Radliegh died after dinner.”
“How? Did someone kill him?”
“Yeah. I did.”
“How did you do that?”
“Just by talking to him.”
“Mister Mortimer said no one should ever listen to you.”
“He’s right, I guess.”

Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 1:57:55 AM

Fletch yawned again. “Thanks died at Hialeah, or something.”

Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 1:58:51 AM

🔖 Bookmark on Location 3270
Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 4:35:25 PM

“He spoiled it. He killed it with care.”

Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 4:37:45 PM

oriole

Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 4:38:39 PM

He asked his father, “This guy any good?”
Fletch said, “If he were any stupider he’d need a bar code.”

Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 4:40:35 PM

“Homey,” Fletch commented. “Makes me want to ask when my flight to Tulsa leaves.”
“Do airlines still give out that kind of information?” Jack asked.
“Not voluntarily,” Fletch answered. “Or reliably.”

Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 4:41:34 PM

I couldn’t sell a ticket to a nun

Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 4:54:40 PM

At that moment, Fletch did not expect to be listening to a sixteen-year-old boxer in Montana recite poetry to him by long-distance telephone.

Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 4:55:34 PM

“Oh, no.” Jack put the car in gear.
“I work for the truth.” Slowly he drove the little car around the groups of people in the semicircular driveway.
“Humph,” Fletch said. “Good line.”

Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 5:38:03 PM

“Where did you get an airplane like that?” Slowly, Jack drove Fletch toward the airplane. “The Smithsonian? Don’t they miss it?”
“I bought it from a friend. He needed the money.”
“And you learned to fly it?”
“Not really. I use a road map and stay out of traffic.”

Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 5:42:16 PM

🔖 Bookmark on Location 3950 – Finished!
Added on Thursday, December 22, 2016 5:45:35 PM

Guide to highlight colors

Yellow–general highlights and highlights which don’t fit under another category below
Orange–Vocabulary word; interesting and/or rare word
Green–Reference to read
Blue–Interesting Quote
Gray–Typography Problem
Red–Example to work through