The Fletch of the first novel is an underpaid reporter, hounded by his editors, dodging divorce lawyers, and usually dressed in cut-off jeans and T-shirts. Even better sequels alter the terrain in the process. Good sequels replicate the accomplishments of their predecessors. Fletch, sensing a story, agrees to commit the crime for money, but begins, instead, to investigate. The man claims to be dying of cancer and wants to be murdered. He is approached by a wealthy man with an offer. Fletcher, a twice-married, twice-divorced southern California journalist who looks like a beach-bum, is working undercover as a junkie living on the beach, while trying to crack a drug-trafficking story. Fletch is a sharply written thriller that’s both dryly funny and tightly plotted. Confess, Fletch came out two years later and won the Edgar again, the only time that a book and its sequel have achieved this feat. The character of Fletch debuted in the 1974 novel named for him, a book that won the prestigious Edgar Award for Best First Novel. The Fletch I know from the books has more in common with a young Paul Newman - good looks and dry humor - than with the look-at-me stylings of Saturday Night Live cast member.) (Though I’m a Chevy Chase fan, the casting always seemed wrong to me. These days, sadly, Fletch is more commonly associated with Chevy Chase’s portrayal in the 1985 film Fletch than with McDonald’s words. Among McDonald’s books, Confess, Fletch is second only to its predecessor Fletch, and fans of traditional mysteries might easily find it to be the best. That he balances these elements within the framework of a Fletch novel shows how good McDonald, who died earlier this year, was when he on the top of his game.
Confess, Fletch, Gregory McDonald’s second novel featuring the intrepid wiseass Irwin Maurice Fletcher, is a mystery that takes its cues from the golden age of detective fiction: It features a naked corpse in a locked room, a disparate list of morally challenged suspects, and even introduces an eccentric police detective, an enormous Irish cop with a penchant for chamomile tea and Bach.
Breaking rules and flying in the face of convention can have its rewards, but most avid readers of crime will tell you that nothing satisfies like that tale that falls within the well-marked boundaries of its genre.
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