Carioca Fletch Fletch’s trip to Brazil wasn’t exactly planned. But it’s Carnival time in Rio and he has plenty of money, thanks to a little arrangement made stateside. And it took him no time to hook up with the luscious Laura Soares. Fletch is beginning to relax, just a little. Carioca Fletch But between the American widow who seems to be following Fletch and the Brazilian widow who’s fingered Fletch as her long-dead husband, he suddenly doesn’t have much time to enjoy the present or even get a wink of sleep. Carioca Fletch A thirty-year-old unsolved murder, a more recent suicide, an inconvenient heart attack–somehow Fletch is connected to all of them and one of those connections might just shorten his own life. From Rio to Bahia and back again, at the height of Carnival, Fletch has to keep moving or get stopped cold.

When it comes to crime, Boston Police Inspector and part-time intelligence agent, Francis Xavier Flynn is no stranger to the bizarre, the perverse, or the ridiculous. But when he is suddenly summoned by Police Commissioner D’Esopo to a secret wilderness compound far outside of their jurisdiction, he is a little surprised to find himself the hostage of a secret club of the nation’s most powerful and peculiar. Famous for his irreverent methods and razor sharp intellect, Flynn is forced to conduct a clandestine murder investigation. But before one murder is even solved, membership at the Rod and Gun Club continues to drop.Review"Shameless establishment bashing . . . appealingly fresh and impudent." --*Time“Gregory Mcdonald's a suspenseful writer who knows how to set a scene, develop a character, and draw out a mysterious situation.” –West Coast Review of Books“Splendid entertainment . . . Mcdonald is one of the cleverest writers around.” –United Press International*From the Inside FlapWhen it comes to crime, Boston Police Inspector and part-time intelligence agent, Francis Xavier Flynn is no stranger to the bizarre, the perverse, or the ridiculous. But when he is suddenly summoned by Police Commissioner D?Esopo to a secret wilderness compound far outside of their jurisdiction, he is a little surprised to find himself the hostage of a secret club of the nation?s most powerful and peculiar. Famous for his irreverent methods and razor sharp intellect, Flynn is forced to conduct a clandestine murder investigation. But before one murder is even solved, membership at the Rod and Gun Club continues to drop.

Whether it's a Middle East oil crisis in the 1970s or the London Blitz during WWII, world events have a way of breeding trouble on the home front, too. That's how Toby Rinaldi, son of a U.N. Ambassador, wound up kidnapped on his way to a California amusement park, and how Robby Burnes, orphaned son of British nobility, wound up snatched on the snowy streets of New York City. But as Robby's famous namesake taught us, the best laid plans don't always work out as intended. Especially not when you're a kidnapper in the hands of Gregory Mcdonald.The comic genius behind the Fletch and Flynn books, Gregory Mcdonald also penned the two brilliant kidnapping novels appearing here for the first time in three decades – and the first time ever in a single volume. Two precocious eight-year-old boys...two teams of kidnappers, in way over their heads...two opportunities for mayhem, danger, and the trenchant social satire no crime writer has ever delivered like Mcdonald.

When Boston Police Inspector Francis Xavier Flynn’s barely adolescent daughter asks him to rescue her friend Billy from the cemetery, where he’s been fastened to a tree by a nail through his earlobe, the good inspector is pretty sure there’s something more behind what at first seems like a bully’s prank. And he’s convinced there is more than mischief involved in the hateful threats against distinguished Harvard professor Louis Loveson. If that weren’t enough to keep Flynn busy, there’s Lieutenant John Kurt, whose very impressive arrest record follows some very disturbing patterns. In Flynn’s World, two-time Edgar Award-winner Gregory Mcdonald’s dogged detective confronts intolerance in all its guises, and sheds light on more than one dark secret. F.X. Flynn made his first appearance in Confess, Fletch, where he matched wits with the inimitable Irwin Fletcher. Since then he has befuddled, bemused, amazed, and infuriated his colleagues on the Boston Police force as he has pursued international terrorists, blackmailers, murderers, embezzlers, politicians, and, occasionally, his fellow policemen—all while doing his regular job.From Publishers WeeklyEdgar winner Mcdonald (Fletch, etc.) resurrects minor series character Francis Xavier Flynn, after almost two decades, in a lightweight comic quasi-mystery. "Inspector" Flynn is just the cover identify for a mysterious spy believed dead by most players in the espionage game. Comfortably ensconced in Boston with his poet wife and their five children, Flynn makes almost no effort to sustain his pretense, so that even his slow-witted partner can pick up the anomalies of a man who takes off from work five times to attend his mother's funeral and twice for appendix removal. Flynn pursues three puzzles simultaneously: the nailing to a tree of the ear of his daughter's wrestler boyfriend, a bizarre pattern of harassment directed at an aging but once well-respected Harvard humanities professor, and the odd arrest record of a rising police star who somehow manages to place the bracelets only on minorities and people of color. None of these cases requires Flynn to display any particular brilliance, insight or skills derived from his true career in intelligence work. The insular Flynn moves at his own speed in a way that's hard to take seriously in a post-September 11 world, where the notion of a trained and valuable asset being pampered rather than utilized is jarring. While his commitment to his family makes him sympathetic, Flynn is not well served here by a plot that flirts with serious intellectual issues without developing them.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. From BooklistBoston police inspector Francis Xavier Flynn is in the hot seat over his extended absences from work, his three appendectomies, and the five funerals he's attended for his dear departed mother. What the bureaucrats in the Boston Police Department don't know is that Flynn isn't really a cop; he's a spy using the BPD as a cover, and sometimes spies need extended leaves from their day jobs. While he fights office politics, Flynn also investigates the blackmail of a senior Harvard professor with a background in Middle Eastern studies. And then there's that little matter of his daughter's boyfriend and why he turned up in a cemetery with his ear nailed to a tree. Flynn, ever the student of life's whimsical, often painful turns, solves both cases through equal applications of wit, deduction, and empathy. Flynn has aged well in the 20 years since his last appearance in print. Two-time Edgar winner Mcdonald's humor, pacing, and erudite dialogue are as fresh as ever. Welcome back, Flynn. Wes LukowskyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

In  Fletch’s Moxie , the prolific Gregory Mcdonald tests his incomparable investigative journalist once again with a caper that is as perfectly plotted as Fletch is brilliant.  It seems just about everyone in Hollywood had a reason to want Steve Peterman dead. But how someone managed to put a knife in his back on a live broadcast without being seen is anyone’s guess. Unfortunately for Fletch, his girlfriend, Moxie Mooney, a huge star at the box office, is also the number one suspect. With the police asking way too many questions, Fletch whisks Moxie and her drunken father, O.L., off to Key West for a little privacy. But before he can even check out the beach, the rest of the suspects decide to check in. Now, in a house full of Hollywood’s elite, Fletch is increasingly amazed at how ruthless the movie business can be.

Fletch He’s an investigative reporter whose methods are a little unorthodox. Currently he’s living on the beach with the strung-out trying to find to the source of the drugs they live for.  Fletch He’s taking more than a little flack from his editor. She doesn’t appreciate his style. Or the expense account items he’s racking up. Or his definition of the word  deadline . Or the divorce lawyers who keep showing up at the office. Fletch So when multimillionaire Alan Stanwyk offers Fletch the job of a lifetime, which could be worth a fortune, he’s intrigued and decides to do a little investigation. What he discovers is that the proposition is anything but what it seems.