Why am I passionate about this?
When I was nine years old, I joined a book club. The members were me and my dad. He’d throw detective books into my room when he was done with them, and I’d read them. We’d never discuss them. But that’s why hard-boiled detective fiction is comfort food for me and how I know it so well. I’ve been binging on it most of my life and learning everything the shamus-philosophers had to teach me. Now I write my own, the Ben Ames series, for the joy of paying it forward.
Gayleen's book list on hard-boiled comfort reads for a disappointing world
Why did Gayleen love this book?
When my shoulder are in knots, I can get a massage, or I can reread Fletch.
If you know the book, that will seem weird. It’s not a pretty story and it’s got a pile of seventies misogyny and homophobia that definitely grates. This is not a comfort read. Except it is, for me, because I.M. Fletcher is an artist in the medium of trouble.
This is the story of Fletch’s impossible mountain of problems, personal and professional, and watching him work makes me feel like I’ve seen someone solve a Rubik’s cube underwater with their eyes closed. At the start, a mess. At the end, elegance. Everything is sorted and resolved, no matter how reprehensibly Fletch got it done. My neck tension releases. I can go to bed.
3 authors picked Fletch as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Book one in the bestselling mystery series that brought to life an iconic literary antihero of subversion and schemes
Fletch, investigative reporter extraordinaire, can’t be bothered with deadlines or expense-account budgets when it comes to getting his story.
Working undercover at the beach to dig up a drug-trafficking scheme for his next blockbuster piece, Fletch is invited into a much deeper narrative. Alan Stanwyk, CEO of Collins Aviation and all-around family man, mistakes the reporter for a strung-out vagabond and asks him for a favor: kill him and escape to Brazil with $50,000. Intrigued, Fletch can’t help but dig into…