Fletch and the Widow Bradley

Fletch #4

by Gregory McDonald

When Fletch finds a wallet with ten thousand dollars in cash inside, he doesn’t realize it’s the last piece of good luck he’s going to see for a while. Because when he calls in to the News-Tribune, he discovers a story he’s written is causing quite a sensation, and not the good kind. He might just be out of a job permanently. If Tom Bradley, the chairman of Wagnall-Phipps and one of Fletch’s principal sources, and not incidentally, the source of his paper’s embarrassment, is dead, who’s been signing his name to company documents, and why doesn’t the company treasurer seem to know? If he’s alive, how come his widow, Enid, has Tom’s ashes on the mantel? Fletch may have more questions than answers on his hands, but he knows he’s a pretty good reporter, and if he’s going to get his reputation back, not to mention his job, he’s going to have to get to the bottom of more than one mystery.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Humor, Audiobook, Mystery Thriller, Detective

202 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 9, 1980

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe the twist was more shocking or original when first published, but reading it 40 years later it's telegraphed so completely that, combined with the terrible B-plot that opens and closes the book, this is the worst of the first four novels.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Fletch! and a good laugh!

[Gert De Bie · Rating 4 out of 5]

't is feest waar men Fletch leest.
U weet het inmiddels wel: ik ben behoorlijk verknocht aan de non-chalante reporter van The News Tribune die constant in de clinch ligt met zijn meerderen (ditmaal hoort daar ontslag bij) en zich met zijn vlotte babbel in elke situatie overeind weet te houden.

Deze episode leest erg vlot, kent een strakke opbouw en een goed uitgewerkte plot. Die plot zal bij verschijning (zo'n 40 jaar geleden) wel wat heftiger aangekomen zijn dan bij de modale lezer van vandaag, maar dat doet het boek niets tekort.

Dikke vriendjes, die Fletch en ik. (Al weet ik niet of mijn dochter daarmee thuis moet komen 😛)

[Michael Johnston · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't the best book in the Fletch mystery series, but the snark and brilliant investigative skills of our ersatz hero are back in full force in Fletch and the Widow Bradley. This time, Fletch has made an embarrassing journalistic error that mortifies his employer and ends of getting him fired. But Fletch knows that he has been set up and launches an investigation to determine why he was deceived and by whom.

Fletch ultimately unravels the mystery, but the conclusion isn't what he (or the reader) suspects. Along the way, Fletch breaks laws, tries to act morally and fails and ultimately pays a price for his failure.

This story didn't hold together as well as other books in the series, but it's always fun to watch our hero investigate a mystery. One need not have read other books in the series in order to follow the plot of Fletch and the Widow Bradley, but as the weakest book in the series so far, I definitely would not start reading the series here.

[Sarah Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

After publishing a piece about a chairman, Fletch loses his job only to discover that the chairman had passed away more than a year before. Fletch visits the widow and family to make amends and learn how a deceased chairman continues to write memos to restore his journalistic reputation.

I thought the twist was perfect and pretty progressive, considering when it was written, as always another great Fletch story.

[Shawn Deal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book as I have loved all the books in this series so far.

[Tim Schneider · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fletch has really goofed. Assigned to do a small business piece he includes current quotes from a man who has been dead for two years. The newspaper is embarrassed and Fletch ends up fired. Of course Fletch can't let this mystery go, because he took the quotes from memos provided to him by an officer of the company. So Fletch criss-crosses the country (and Mexico) trying to figure out why a dead man is writing memos and maybe get his job back as a reporter. And Fletch finances this with a large amount of money that he found in a wallet. He's been trying to track down the owner, but has been very unsuccessful.

Wait...how can Fletch be fired when he hasn't been a reporter for the last couple books? Well this is a prequel. So there's that. The mystery was probably a fairly big deal in 1980, and maybe it wasn't as self-evident then as it is now. But I figured it out maybe 1/3 of the way through the book. The secondary mystery of the wallet is really just a McGuffin. This was okay. I liked it maybe a bit better than Fletch's Fortune. But McDonald just hasn't been able to recapture the magic of that first novel.

[Kostas Kanellopoulos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fletch' s dialogue is still fresh after 40 years

[Ian Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one, probably more than at least a few of the ones before it, if probably not as much as the original.

As for the ending, with no spoilers, I thought it was surprisingly sensitive while not being unrealistic about the entire situation, including Fletch’s reaction.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chronologically, Fletch and the Widow Bradley precedes the original Fletch books although the author assumes you'll be clever enough to figure it out. Indeed, here, Fletch actually cares about losing his job. He has yet to acquire his villa on the Italian Riviera. Also of note is that, despite the appearance of Moxie in this story, there is no real connection with "Fletch's Moxie" which takes place chronologically years later after Moxie becomes a star.

This story takes us on a journey into the art of reporting and the difficulties one might encounter when one quotes recent memos of a long-dead CEO. Perhaps that small faux pas might piss the hell out of your publisher. But a good reporter is like a bulldog once he gets his teeth into something and that's just what is pulled off in this book. The pace might be a bit languid for someone used to lots of action, but what makes this one really work is that McDonald keeps a steady pace throughout as well as a singleminded focus. The one real tangent - Fletch's life as a sort of Mother Teresa type of Good Samaritan is a good foil against the main plot.

[Keith Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

All Fletch books are kind of a product of the times they were written in. But this one is especially so. I don't want to give anything away, but the reader of this book discovers the "secret" about halfway through the book, much sooner than Fletch does. It may have been shocking in 1970something, but today it is just a quaint reminder that we have progressed a lot further socially.

[Greg Schell · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better books in the Fletch series. Any good mystery must keep the reader guessing and the pages turning, as this does. But one of the things I love about Gregory McDonald is that the character dialogue takes things to another level. As one would expect, Fletch is at his witty best here and the book is full of laugh out loud moments.

[Thomas Head · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mcdonald shows the ins and outs of actual journalism in this one. What a reporter needs to do in order to get and keep a story. Why doing your diligence is so important, and why objective reporting doesn't always make a good fit with people's lives. All to the absurdist extreme that is a Fletch story.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Way better than "Fletch, Too," but not as good as "Fletch Won." Also loses a star because I figured out the mystery halfway through the book...

[Hobart · Rating 3 out of 5]

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
---
Fletch checks in to his office before returning from a few days away to find out that he's fired. He'd filled in for an injured colleague to write a profile on a small local business that the Gazette had written an exposé about a few years before, just to see how they were doing in the aftermath. They were doing fine, and Fletch had quoted recent memos from the CEO demonstrating that. The teeny tiny problem there is that the particular CEO had been dead for a couple of years. Quoting corpses is generally frowned upon (unless you're writing about voters' views on Chicago politicians, I guess), and so Fletch is fired. Not only that, he's probably finished forever as a journalist.

Understandably, Fletch is incensed. He's angry. He's also mystified -- he knows what he read. He knows he did good work -- how did they fool him? More importantly, why? If his career is over, he's going to know why it happened. So he starts interviewing those nearest the dead man -- his business associates, family, and so on -- he eventually flies across the country a couple of times (and up to Alaska, too).

At this point in Fletch's life, he is notoriously dead broke -- recently divorced (again) with attorneys looking for alimony payments, and (as mentioned) fired. So how does he afford the gas and airline travel? Well, he found a walled with a whole lot of money in it and cannot find the owner. So he borrows a little bit. This is a very odd little storyline that I honestly have never fully understood. Not the events in it, but the reasoning behind its inclusion in the book. Other than to give Moxie (more about her in a moment) and Fletch something to talk about, and to give Fletch money for plane tickets.

Now, close readers might pick up a thing or two (if they haven't read the books anyway) -- I said Gazette (the paper that Fletch was almost certainly fired from after Fletch) and "at this point in" his life and "recently divorced." This is the first time where Mcdonald bounces back in time for a novel -- this is why I've noted publication order and chronological order in my post headings for this series. Mcdonald needs Fletch to have a newspaper job to tell this story -- and post Fortune, that's not really likely (it's not like he needs the money). This chronological flexibility is both rare in a series like this one, and will become a hallmark of the books.

The best reason to read this book is the introduction of the character Moxie Mooney. Moxie's an actress -- daughter of the legendary Freddie Mooney -- a major acting star of both stage and screen. Moxie's still struggling to make it at this point, but she's got talent. She's also a long-time on-again/off-again romantic partner to Fletch. There's more chemistry between the two, more genuine feelings and more obvious compatibility between Moxie and Fletch than there is between any two people in this series. She's funny, she's quirky, she's driven -- not unlike Irwin Maurice himself. I'm not sure how often I would have re-read the book without her

At the end of the day, this one doesn't have the same impact and entertainment value most of the rest of the series does. There are some great moments -- and I love Moxie -- but there's something missing from this one. Still, Fletch books are like that old line about pizza -- when it's good, it's really good; and when it's bad, it's still pretty good.

[We Are All Mad Here · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good Fletch episode, though this is the first in the series that might make you question the chronology of it all. For instance, this one (I'm guessing) seems to have taken place before the events of the first three, and after Fletch had at least one divorce behind him. Oh, well. Entertaining enough for me.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's very hard to rate this one, as it reads a lot differently in 2019 than it must have in 1980. I almost feel a little embarrassed for guessing the "twist" 5/8ths of the way through rather than halfway through. It was kind of a slog getting through the last part knowing what was going to happen, but the author's handling of the reveal and its aftermath was relatively sensitive for its time and ass-backwards today. For what it's worth I ultimately liked it better than Fletch's Fortune, but knowing it's a prequel to Fletch (which may be even more problematic in its own ways), it makes me interested in reading Fletch Won and Fletch Too.

[Brett Littman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fletch finally loses something he cares about ... his profession and journalistic integrity. That's the best part of the book, along with the usual snappy dialogue. I don't know how to judge the twist ... 2024 vision is different than 1981 vision.

[Shane Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did not see that coming.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

4*

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yet another tale in which Fletch gets fired for writing a piece about some industrial group for his newspaper in which he quotes memos from the dead chairperson. The person being dead for close to a year. Fletch being Fletch does the nice thing and goes in person to visit all possible relatives to apologize, sort of that is. He gets really curious when he finds out that the dearly departed was actually a carpet. And so Fletch sniffs around the dead persons history while inbetween enjoying the carnal pleasures with Miss Moxie Mooney, and turns down a chance of working with her even more closely.

Yes it is another Fletch tale by Gregory McDonald, and as always it is less about the solution and more about the road traveled and the brilliant and often fun conversations and crazy observations that are penned down. For me the movie Fletch should always have been Matthew McConaughey instead of Chevy Chase, even if the last one did a fine job. McDonalds solution has been put down by some reviews as no longer an issue these days, but looking at the puritanical version the US is turning into I would say it still is a big deal.

Great and fun installment of a fun series to read, well recommended.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will put this in every review of a Gregory McDonald FLETCH novel - they are a masterclass in dialogue. None finer.

[m. · Rating 3 out of 5]

As usual with the Fletch series, the book rattles along at a nice pace (none of them takes more than a day to read) and, as another reviewer has said, the 'twist' is suspected by the modern reader at about the 50% mark, although I initially dismissed it as being too far-fetched.

Enjoyable, though not a classic Fletch book.

[Bryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book set early in Fletch's career. Fletch is still as witty as always. It was interesting to read and I wondered as I read it what my attitude toward the plotline would have been like if I had read it thirty years ago when it was written. Times have changed.

[Isla McKetta · Rating 3 out of 5]

The better of the two Fletch books I read that day, but not the most memorable. Maybe it was my cold or the fact that I read too quickly, but I didn't remember until 2/3 of the way through that I had already read this one years ago.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a bit of a hiccup with Fletch's Fortune, Mcdonald was back at the top of his game with this one, arguably the best in the series so far. A low-stakes but snappy mystery, I think I read this one in about 90 minutes, a page-turner in every sense of the word.

[Dustin Reade · Rating 4 out of 5]

there were some seriously odd situations in this book. And the outcome was great. The wrap up was whole, toatl, and complete, and left me feeling satisfied. I look forward to the other Fletch books.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it more than three stars but less than four. Good not great addition to the series.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fletch series #4

[Elmer Foster · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lost in translation, (no pun intended) from film to written pages, this character lacks so much depth and viability that I won't be reading another Fletch.

To be clear, I highly enjoyed Chevy Chase as Fletch in BOTH movies (although, not really sure which books they were based on--still wouldn't read them after this.) So seeing a Fletch paperback, I got excited.

Turns out nostalgia doesn't read well. Nor does this story age well (1981).

This was a meth-head rip off version of George Burns and Gracie Allen's old tv series, with word play, puns, etc., and nothing felt fresh, humorous, nor believable for me. And Fletch is supposed to be a former Marine, as well? What gives? He was written poorly and tagged with added supporting details that were supposed to give him credibility. Guess that worked in the 80's, but it doesn't hold up presently.

Neither does the dead man story or the lost money side plot.

The travel required to conduct the (spoiler) premise of the primary story couldn't occur without a paper trail, easily found by a boy scout, or Fletch in this case (and is eventually). We, the readers, get these clues spoon-fed near the end, but the obviousness is glaring the entire time.

Faulty timeline narrative given, no death certificate/funeral, and lame financial story to get us in the room with the focal character is clumsy, at best. Scatter gender clues that may have been edgy or futuristic when written, are beyond common place today, and make the story almost cringy. This story has been done better in other books. I dare say that Fletch is not the best candidate to decipher the riddle here, and the story lacks for it.

On Fletch alone, this story does him no justice, beyond his dogged determination. Clearly a lazy, unfocused hack writer-at-will, why is he worth reading about? Is he based on somebody famous?
I didn't find any sequence funny, didn't chuckle at any premise, dialogue, or activity, and found myself looking for Chevy within the pages. Sadly, he wasn't in there.

I gave it 2 stars: 1 for the written effort and 1 for me not coming off as a Fletch-hater. Hell, I probably will go back and watch both movies just to clear the after taste.

Thanks for reading.