[Fletch 10] • Son of Fletch

The Barnes Noble Review

Irwin "Fletch" Fletcher, investigative reporter extraordinaire, has just found out that he has a son. Unfortunately for Fletch, this recently discovered offspring is a convicted murderer who has recently escaped from a nearby maximum-security federal penitentiary!

Fletch and his girlfriend, Carrie, are returning to their rural Tennessee home after a night on the town when they're stopped at a roadblock. According to Sheriff Joe Rogers, four extremely dangerous convicts have escaped from a Kentucky penitentiary and may be headed into Tennessee. When the sheriff lists the escaped prisoners' names, one surname sticks out: Faoni. Fletch once knew -- i.e., had a bizarre one-night stand with -- a "corpulent" woman named Crystal Faoni decades earlier. Back home, Fletch is accosted by a bedraggled young man who claims to be John Fletcher Faoni, the grown son that Fletcher never even knew he had. After meeting John's three highly unsavory accomplices, Fletch decides to help his fugitive son (who, like his father, is "smooth as a Mississippi River stone") and gets inadvertently involved in an outlandish plot that includes bumbling neo-Nazis, backwoods revolutionaries -- and plenty of vomit.

Action-packed, strikingly witty, and often laugh-out-loud funny, this reissue of McDonald's 1993 bestseller will tickle fans of the author's lengthy Fletch saga ( Fletch; Confess, Fletch; Fletch's Fortune; et al.) Fans should also check out Fletch Reflected, a 1994 installment in the series. Paul Goat Allen