Shane Life

Fletch Reflected
by Gregory McDonald
RATING: 7 out of 10

Over 2 decades, Gregory McDonald wrote 11 novels featuring one of my favorite characters of all time - Irwin M. Fletcher, affectionately known as Fletch. The timeline of the books was actually really interesting, jumping around chronologically and weaving interesting characters in and out of his stories.

The last two books in the series (Son of Fletch, Fletch Reflected) are not considered a part of the Fletch series according to McDonald’s official site. The character of Fletch appears a lot in Son of Fletch (which was the last book I read), but I think that McDonald perhaps intended to create a new series of books around Fletch’s son, Jack, so he introduced him with a hybrid novel that was about half Fletch-driven and half about his son.

Fletch Reflected almost entirely focuses on Jack during the time immediately following the end of Son of Fletch. It is an interesting story in which he starts to investigate the attempted murder of an eccentric scientist who keeps all his family very close, despite their obvious loathe towards him.

It’s a pretty good book, a little better than Son of Fletch, but perhaps I’m just a little burnt on the whole series. It’s been really fun to read the whole series and see the full spectrum of what McDonald envisioned when he created the character of Fletch. It’s amazing that he was able to maintain the character and his attitude from 1974 to 1994. The only similar instances that I can think of are Ian Fleming’s James Bond (12 novels in 13 years, but the franchise has carried through to many more books) and Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt (that’s for you, Jake).

(I’m sure that there are other examples, but those are the only ones I could think of right now.)

I’m a little sad that the series slowed down and ended, but at the same time, I can’t imagine writing about the same character for that long. I don’t think I could recommend the book by itself without the rest of the series. However, it’s still a fun read, so if you like Fletch and haven’t read this book, I would definitely suggest it.