He has two ex-wives, seems to have collected a lot of disapproval for his stories and when we first meet him he looks like any other bum, lolling around on a California beach with other dropouts looking for their next drug fix. Here he is 29, an investigative journalist and Vietnam veteran (the war of course was still dragging on when the book first came out) and a recipient of the Bronze Star, which in typical fashion he has refused to go and officially accept. The sequence of novels would eventually get a bit convoluted as Mcdonald progressed, moving backwards and forwards to provide a fascinating portrait of his protagonist at different points in his life. Which is to say, they’re pretty damn good. It won an Edgar in 1975 as did its sequel, Confess, Fletch (1976), the first and only such win for consecutive books in a series in the history of the Awards of the Mystery Writers of America. Eventually the original series would run to nine novels, published between 19, two belated sequels in the following decade and four spin-offs. This novel was the first in a long series of mystery novels featuring Fletch, or to give him his full name (which he hates), Irwin Maurice Fletcher.
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