Detective Sunderson

Author Jim Harrison has won international acclaim for his masterful body of work, including over thirty books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. In his most original work to date, Harrison delivers an enthralling, witty, and expertly crafted novel following one man's hunt for an elusive cult leader, dubbed the Great Leader. On the verge of retirement, Detective Sunderson begins to investigate a hedonistic cult, which has set up camp near his home in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. At first, the self-declared Great Leader seems merely a harmless oddball, but as Sunderson and his sixteen-year-old sidekick dig deeper, they find him more intelligent and sinister than they realized. Recently divorced and frequently pickled in alcohol, Sunderson tracks his quarry from the woods of Michigan to a town in Arizona, filled with criminal border-crossers, and on to Nebraska, where the Great Leader's most recent recruits have gathered to glorify his questionable religion. But Sunderson's demons are also in pursuit of him. Rich with character and humor, The Great Leader is at once a gripping excursion through America's landscapes and the poignant story of a man grappling with age, lost love, and his own darker nature.

Jim Harrison is one of our most renowned and popular authors, and his last novel, The Great Leader, was one of the most successful in a decorated career: it appeared on the New York Times extended bestseller list and was a national bestseller with rapturous reviews. His darkly comic follow-up, The Big Seven, sends Detective Sunderson to confront his new neighbors, a gun-nut family who live outside the law in rural Michigan.Detective Sunderson has fled troubles on the home front and bought himself a hunting cabin in a remote area of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. No sooner has he settled in than he realizes his new neighbors are creating even more havoc than the Great Leader did. A family of outlaws, armed to the teeth, the Ameses have local law enforcement too intimidated to take them on. Then Sunderson's cleaning lady, a comely young Ames woman, is murdered, and black sheep brother Lemuel Ames seeks Sunderson's advice on a crime novel he's writing, which may not be fiction. Sunderson must struggle with the evil within himself and the far greater, more expansive evil of his neighbor.In a story shot through with wit, bedlam, and Sunderson's attempts to enumerate and master the seven deadly sins, The Big Seven is a superb reminder of why Jim Harrison is one of America's most irrepressible writers.