Fletch Revisited

 Recently, I was rereading one of my favorite novels, the 1974 mystery Fletch...that's right, the one that inspired the 1985 movie with Chevy Chase...although I have long felt the role was miscast. I actually bought this copy at the Weis Market in Wyomissing back in 1985, it even has Chevy Chase on the front with a wallet full of fake IDs.

As with most source material, there are subtle and not so subtle differences with the movie adaptation, such as names and events, though the overall plot is the same.

What many people DON'T know is that there were 9 Fletch novels written, with some sequel books featuring his son published in the 90s. The author Gregory McDonald was an inspiration to me when it came to writing dialogue.

So the question is, who is Irwin Maurice Fletcher, known to most as Fletch...as a character?

Aside from being a regular wiseass...

He fought in the marines and earned a Bronze Star in his younger days...which he refuses to collect, even when threatened with unemployment.

He loves the idea of marriage and is in fact married twice, both ending with divorce through infidelity (wife 1) and throwing a cat out the window (wife 2). He later comments to his son that with a marriage also comes two attorneys and beds aren't made that big. He maintains a civil, even friendly to the exes he owes alimony to (never pays), and his exes still adore him.

As a reporter, he believes in the stories he writes and does a thorough job. However, many of his pieces have made him subject to anger and even possible libel due to the hack editing job done by an incompetent editor who earned her job by sleeping with the boss.

Aside from that, Fletch will do ANYTHING for a story, some things which would make a self-pious soul cringe...for example sleeping with a female teen drug addict who needed a place to shack. When she dies from an overdose, Fletch is horrified and more determined to break his story about drugs on the beach, which he does over the head of the incompetent editor. Earlier in his career he also broke a story about an embezzling IRS head by bedding the man's wife and convincing her to get a divorce so she can be free to testify. She leaves the country to wait for him but Fletch only wants the story.

As I said, a lot of moral ambiguity in Fletch, but no more than elected officials in D.C. In fact, he has a strong sense of honor.

A rich man named Stanwyk sees Fletch on the beach and assumes he is a drifter, and asks Fletch to kill him for $50,000 so that he won't suffer from the pain of bone cancer. After a long subtle investigation of Stanwyk, which involves a one-time affair with Stanwyk's wife, Fletch pieces together that Stanwyk wants out of rich society (though with $3 million embezzled) so that he can be with his childhood sweetheart. This plan involves bleaching his hair to look like Fletch, murder and then burn Fletch's body, and escape to Rio with his true love....Stanwyk's moral reasoning being that he has the right to kill anyone who has agreed to kill him.

Fletch is about to do the right thing and walk away...that is until the chief of police (who Fletch had named as the source of drugs on the beach) kills Stanwyk thinking it is Fletch.

This is where Fletch's second life takes effect.

The following morning, he is due in two courtooms for contempt of court regarding alimony, as well as the Marine commandant's office to pick up his Bronze Star. Instead, he takes the money and goes to Rio, where he spends some time learning just how life should be lived...with quality as opposed to quantity.

He later befriends an Italian retired count and helps him learn who stole his vast art collection...by getting engaged to the count's daughter and faking the count's kidnapping and death to draw out the thief who is the daughter. Along the way, he himself is framed for murder by the daughter's accomplice, works with and against a wily Irish detective to get him off the hook, and even returns to reporting at a Boston newspaper for one night as a favor to an old boss.

Occasionally, Fletch's ego blinds him, and he learns that he is not as clever as he thought.

In one book, Fletch is fired for quoting a dead man as being alive (which is revealed later to be the case).

In investigating Stanwyk, he doesn't know that his wife took his picture to find out who he really was.

When trying to solve the murder for which he is accused, he logically lays out his theory to the Irish detective about his landlord's lesbian ex wife, not knowing the detective already had warrants ready to arrest the count's daughter's accomplice in the art theft.

In casting for the movies, I probably would have chosen someone younger than Chase, but that's me.

Overall, Fletch is one of the most engaging literary characters I have ever had the pleasure of reading and rereading.