Fletch Reflected

Marked by Mcdonald's offhand humor (``I can't figure out whether Wyoming is big or just empty'') and offbeat characters, the 11th Fletch story features a finale that is not so much a resolution as a deflation, like a spent balloon. Fletch's son Jack, having sold his story/expose of rightwing crazies to Global Cable News (see Son of Fletch), heads to the huge Georgia estate of billionaire inventor Chester Radleigh at the request of Shana Steufel, an old, but memorable, one-night stand of Jack's. Shana, who is engaged to one of Radleigh's sons, believes her future father-in-law's life is in danger. Jack gets a groundkeeper's job at the estate, which is run like a benevolent dictatorship. Meanwhile, Fletch pere is planning to have Jack's mother Crystal lose 400-plus pounds at a Wyoming training camp for boxers. While probing the dysfunctional Radliegh family, in which the spoiled wife and four grown children rebel in individual ways, Jack finds snakes under every rock and psyche. Then Fletch appears at the estate and triggers the sorry ending. Fletch and his newly discovered son Jack are an appealing pair in need of a better plot. (Sept.)