FLYNN'S IN

by Gregory Mcdonald ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 11, 1984

The Mysterious Press is launching a larger, more ambitious list this spring, some of it devoted to new hard-cover entries from writers usually seen only in paperback. And, while a few of those writers may indeed belong only in pulpy paper, Gregory Mcdonald--creator of the Fletch series and two previous Flynn novels, as well as the hard-cover Who Took Toby Rinaldi? (1980)--is a master of mystery-comedy who's always welcome in any form at all. This new outing for Inspector Frank Flynn of the Boston Police is quintessential Mcdonald--with a strain of off-the-wall whimsy that some readers may find a bit hard to connect with. Secretly summoned to a remote New England hunting lodge, Flynn finds himself among a group of power-broker-types (congressmen, judges, tycoons) who spend their weekends at this private hideaway--hunting, indulging their whims (food fights, nudism, transvestitism), and making cabal-ish deals that affect America's future. One of the members, however, has been found dead: US Congressman Dwight Huttenbach. And though the club has attempted a coverup, Flynn and sidekick Concannon know a murder when they see one. Was Huttenbach killed for personal/financial reasons? (Jealous wife, angry business associates.) Perhaps. But then a diva-ish transvestite judge is strangled mid-aria. So it begins to seem as if a variation on And Then There Were None is in the making. . . while the club members keep trying to hide the bodies (more corpses soon pop up) and avoid scandal. The solution, when it comes, is suitably implausible--and a trifle preachy. (Mcdonald is semi-serious in his satire of the inane, powerful elite.) Flynn's repartee, however, is state-of-the-art: rangily allusive, deceptively gentle. And Mcdonald's blend of parody, farce, and sentiment--with echoes of everyone from Wode-house to Christie to Preston Sturges--is rich yet spare, edgily appealing.

Pub Date: May 11, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Mysterious Press--dist. by Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1984

Categories: FICTION