Joseph Smith Fletcher - The Paradise Mystery

By Fantasyman on January 19, 2013
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

I rate this one five stars. Mostly on the craft displayed by the author in writing this story. Some of Fletcher's novels have that boiler plate feel to them, quickly hacked together and then off to the publisher. He was a very inventive story teller with a talent for paring the plot down to bite size tidbits easily digested by the reader. As I have stated, this was one of his more carefully crafted efforts. The plot is excellent and moves along at a steady pace, with well developed characters, and a surprise ending that makes sense, along with wrapping up the story. What intrigues me most about this story is how Fletcher uses the omniscient view to portray events in an active and incisive manner, following one character after another while revealing details both about the characters as well as clues to the mystery itself, yet never wandering off track. None of Fletcher's novels are ever likely to make it into the pantheon of great mystery fiction, as Fletcher never relies on a larger than life detective character to unravel the mystery with a flash of intuitive brilliance. He always builds the mystery with clues that are out there for the reader to see and to relate to. I've read several of his novels to date, and I can state that in not one of them is the reader left in the dark about clues or events that solve the mystery, nor are events that eventually prove to be important glossed over or trivialized in the course of the story to reduce their import in the mind of the reader, only to be suddenly brought back at the end by some superior intellect to solve the mystery. With Fletcher you always know what's what.

Take the time to read this one, you won't be disappointed.

Here are some other novels by Fletcher that I recommend:

The Middle Temple Murder
The Chestermarke Instinct
Dead Men's Money
The Burrough Treasurer