Fletch

I vaguely remember this as being a watchable movie starring Chevy Chase as Fletch. This is the book on which the film was based and I didn't finish it. I had two problems with it. Firstly it was dialogue rich without occasional reminders of which character was speaking but the main problems was that the author makes no attempt to give you any idea what Fletch is thinking and you're left with a thin character and, and this is important, an amoral one.

Fletch is a reporter posing as a drug addict for a story he's researching and he's sleeping with a young woman who really is a junkie and is making money by doing tricks ... and she's 15. At no point is there any suggestion that Fletch feels any need to do anything to resolve this: it's just colour.

The book was written in 1974 and it's out of print. I can't help wondering if the moral stance of the lead character is part of that.

having read that Jon Hamm was reprising the role of Fletch but with a very different take than Chevy Chase, I figured it was time to go to the actual source (It was news to me that Fletch was a popular series from the 70s). Anyhow this is a book that will make a reader out of a teenage boy: it starts with a rapid-fire dialogue and before the first page is turned, proposed murder. Cool.

now of course this is a 70's protagonist: an unapologetic (and successful) womaniser. there's no 'comeuppance' for Fletch - it's pure enjoyment of a rat, being a rat, cause he's a charming rat. the humour is deadpan and the punchlines are subtlety revealed to the reader before they appear in print. in short, fluffing the reader to compliment himself on his deductive reasoning and astute observation. great story AND flattering your audience? no wonder this series took off.