Sarah Weinman reports the sad news that Gregory McDonald has passed away. His novels FLETCH, CONFESS, FLETCH and FLYNN, and his breezy way with dialogue, had a huge impact on me as a writer. Back in the early 1980s, when I was a student at UCLA, I was lucky to be able to interview him twice for the UCLA Daily Bruin. You can read the interviews here.
Wow, that’s a shame. Both his FLETCH and FLYNN series were regularly great, rollicking fun, and often brilliant. He will be missed.
Incredibly sad. This may not be a popular opinion, but I always felt the Flynn novels were underrated. Fletch was a great creation, but McDonald put so much charm and wit into the character of Flynn that I just absorbed the three Flynn novels he wrote. That said, while everyone knows he wrote great dialogue, I hope people remember what an ingenious plotter and just great storyteller McDonald was.
From the first time I read FLETCH, I always pictured Robert Culp in the part. That internal image has stayed with me ever since. But then, I always thought Culp in his prime would have been the perfect “Graham” in RED DRAGON….