The Great Leader

Detective Sunderson #1

by Jim Harrison

Author Jim Harrison has won international acclaim for his masterful body of work, including Returning to Earth, Legends of the Fall and 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.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Audiobook, Crime, Literary Fiction, Novels, Literature

329 pages, Hardcover

First published September 2, 2011

About the author

Jim Harrison was born in Grayling, Michigan, to Winfield Sprague Harrison, a county agricultural agent, and Norma Olivia (Wahlgren) Harrison, both avid readers. He married Linda King in 1959 with whom he has two daughters.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

His awards include National Academy of Arts grants (1967, 68, 69), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1969-70), the Spirit of the West Award from the Mountain & Plains Booksellers Association, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2007).

Much of Harrison's writing depicts sparsely populated regions of North America with many stories set in places such as Nebraska's Sand Hills, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Montana's mountains, and along the Arizona-Mexico border.

Reviews

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit I'm a Jim Harrison junkie. Every time I lie down with one of his books, I am transported in link with a mind that works like my own. The wistful looking back at life-changing mistakes made, reflecting on them, making the same mistakes over again this time with humor so maybe the lesson will stick. All the stupid things we do as we flit about in obeyance to our self involved emotions, but but find release from self into the universal by nature. Because he is male, I can mock his being led by his penis with a sense of superiority, even as he grieves yet rejoices in his lustiness.

He's such a male writer yet his truths and wisdoms are universal.

And there's always always something to ponder as his characters muse and come closer to veritas. This one's about sex, money and religion. The Great Leader is a charismatic cult leader who takes in millions, incorporates Indian mystics in with mumbo jumbo which gravely outrages our protagonist who hails from the UP where Indians are deeply entrenched. This Leader's fakery combines with his notion that his semen is God so he initiates girls. Far too young girls. He's a fraud bully and depraved molester, and Sunderson wants to get him so bad he continues his case after his retirement.

[Kay · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have no idea why this author gets such great reviews, but then I haven't read any of his other works. To me, this was a wandering, nonsensical tale of a recently retired police officer in the Upper Peninsula who is ineffectively pursuing a cult leader suspected of sex with underage girls. Ironically, the protagonist also plays the role of peeping Tom to spy on his next-door neighbor's teenage daughter. When not getting drunk or falling flat on his face, he is engaged in meaningless sex with a variety of nubile females who, inexplicably, throw themselves at this 55-year-old goat. He considers himself a history buff, and the novel is littered with the titles of scholarly works, perhaps to establish his creds as a thinking man despite his unthinking behavior. The plot is so lame that I just abandoned the book at the halfway point.

When it comes to the Upper Peninsula, I'll take William Kent Krueger any day.

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise is shallow and unrealistic: a Michigan State trooper retires at 65 and decides to track down a pedophillic cult leader, all the way in Arizona. The protagonist, Sunderson, will be familiar to any reader of Harrison. He's divorced, a functional alcoholic, with strong opinions on nature, cuisine, literature and politics. He manages to have sex, often, without much effort. He's a failure in his most important relationships, but, at his core, a good man. Harrison's favorite adjectives - captious and ineffable - are trotted out. And much use is made of an obscure non-fiction work, in this case Playing Indian.

So Harrison does not stray from his template. Even a first time-reader will know Sunderson's opinions are really Harrison's. His plots serve only as a vehicle to explain his worldview. But maybe this could serve as a menu for someone recently retired. You know, if you know someone.

Here's some classic Harrison:

He didn't have all that much information on the Great Leader but he still refused to ask the FBI for help. They were both nosy and condescending and as the disaster of 9/11 indicated they didn't like to share the information they themselves ignored.

----- ----- ----- ----- -----

He hit the radio OFF button when someone on NPR used the word iconic. He used to keep track of these obtuse Orwellian nuggets. A few years ago it was the relentless use of the word closure that raised his ire and then with Iraq the silly term embedded. In general Sunderson had no use for pundits. It reminded him of a recent article in the Marquette newspaper interviewing a local girl who had tried to make it in Hollywood who said, "Just about everyone you meet out there is a producer." Pundits reflected his idea that everyone in America gets to make themselves up whole cloth, and also the hideously mistaken idea that talking is thinking.

----- ----- ----- ----- -----

It turned out that despite his expired detective license and still current Michigan concealed weapons permit he couldn't buy a pistol because he was a nonresident. He was pissed off enough to feel his temples pounding. The clerk waited for the bad news to sink in, chortled again, and gave Sunderson directions to a public library.

"You get a library card and that's proper Arizona ID and then I sell you a pistol."

----- ----- ----- ----- -----

Why was he such a fool? "To thine own self be true," said Polonius but then his Shakepeare professor at Michigan State forty-five years before had said that Polonius was a parodic character blathering the street wisdom of the day.

----- ----- ----- ----- -----

a parodic character blathering the street wisdom of the day

Describes Sunderson very well. This was entertaining blather.

[juice · Rating 1 out of 5]

First - and very much the last - Jim Harrison book ever read. Maybe he wrote other stuff that was good, I don't know. Some of his older stuff gets great reviews, but this piece of utter dreck has plenty of five-star reviews as well, presumably from those who occupy the same fantasy headspace as the author.

This is unmitigated garbage. Some old bloke writing out his fantasies and vaguely forming a story (mostly plotless) around them in order to validate them in some way. I mean, doesn't every woman (including 16yo neighbours who really really want to be peeping Tommed) want to get it it on with an alcoholic, broken-down, shambling ex-cop?

This is trading on the author's name more than the most recent John Grisham novel, which is saying something. Are there no editors remaining who can point out that crap is, indeed, crap?

So unless you, like the author, are living in a fantasy world where you're an old drunk for whom every woman you meet immediately throws herself on her back, it's absolute rubbish that you should avoid. If you ARE that person, then, yes, you'll love it.

[Jack Rochester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jim Harrison is either an acquired or an inherent taste. If acquired, it's because the reader wishes to glimpse into the soul and life of people who are stranger, who do riskier, more exciting things than they. If an inherent taste, it's because the reader shares, or at least empathizes with, certain traits of the author or has come into a profound appreciation of the nature and genre of the author's work. This is not just true of Harrison but Hemingway, Willa Cather, Faulkner, Pynchon, and surely many others you can name. In Harrison's case, those who possess the inherent taste may be those who are, at least in age, his contemporaries.

In The Great Leader, we view the world through the old eyes of a retiring police detective named Sunderson. His view is through a glass darkly filled with existential ennui, a bit of self-deprecating humor, and an appreciation for the female of the species. He makes no bones about appreciating the derrieres of women, whether young or mature. Some readers, lacking Sunderson's perspective on life at the age of 65, may find this offensive. Yet Sunderson is no sex-crazed fool, and he sees his self-deception, his carnality, for exactly what it is. And just in case we do not, he weaves in the story of the retired detective still at work, still in pursuit of a cult leader who preys on barely-pubescent girls. As Sunderson tracks him down, so does he pursue his own moral equivocating, working damned hard to get a little wisdom out of the deal.

It's easy to impose value judgments on Sunderson's thought and behavior, but I think Harrison wants us to do just that. We see Sunderson’s macho-ness, as well as his physical and emotional weaknesses. He's a man confronting all the issues attendant with retirement. What do we retire from? What do we retire to? What if our options, either moving back or forward, are not desirable? As pages turn, Harrison uses a near-stream-of-consciousness writing style that is part narrator, part Sunderson's conversations with himself, to help us see him trying to reach a deeper level of understanding about himself. I believe this is commendable in any novel: the most desirable thing is to see characters change, for better or for worse.

Examples of these moments of reflection and enlightenment abound in this novel, but here is a sampler:

1. "(His best friend) Marion said that there were no rules only stories and how would my story end in the desuetude of retirement? Marion said that the computer allows people to waste endless hours on the novelty of their weaker interests. Just how is flax grown and why are there so many Russian prostitutes in Madrid?" [p. 89]

2. "Outside of Patagonia (Arizona) his cell phone rang with the William Tell Overture, music he hated but didn't know how to change." [p. 139]

3. "'(Marion speaking) Not at all. It's just us. Certain scientists are now positing the biological origins of religion. We're perfect parasites when we maintain order in society and maintain the host that feeds us, and religion is an essential way of maintaining order.'

"'The Lutheran church is a biological organism?' Sunderson laughed.

"'At least partly. Bring it all home. Look at yourself. consider what either of us do to conduct our lives in terms of sex, finance and religion.'" [p. 221]

4. "He had heard on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac on NPR how the famed German writer Goethe had fallen into a depression when at the age of seventy-three an eighteen-year-old girl had refused to marry him. There was evidence here that great writers could be the same variety of dickheads as ex-detectives."

Sunderson's dickheadedness is made apparent by his watching Mona, his 16-year old next-door neighbor through her bedroom window. Mona wants him to do just that. As they grow closer, Sunderson ceases his peeping and begins to discover her inherent humanity. Near the end Harrison writes, "At least Mona was becoming part of his own extended family and disappearing as a sexual being. She was the only example he could think of that showed self-control. You could think it through all you want and you're still going to get a hard-on over the wrong person and human peace is blown away." [p. 316]

Sunderson, the realist, ever the ironist.

P.S. Upon finishing The Great Leader, I couldn't help recalling the relationship between Mikael and Lisbeth, the characters in Stieg Larsson's "Girl" trilogy. On the surface, Sunderson and Mona reminded me of them - but only superficially. Mikael, old enough to be Lisbeth's father, sleeps with her for no particular reason - except, perhaps, sex and circumstance. By confronting Mona's honest representation of herself as a sensual, sexual being, Sunderson explores his own deeper sense of sex and morality. There are worlds of difference in what the reader takes away from these two writers about understanding human sexual nature.

Jack B. Rochester is a voracious, iconoclastic reader who has just published his first novel, Wild Blue Yonder: wildblueyondernovel.com

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rambling, wax philosophical, politically confused and mostly plotless, having little to do with the title character other than a bit of gruesomeness near the end. I never came to understand the protagonist's obsession with the case, nor did I get a sense of the villain's crimes or his victims. The protagonist's obsession with T&A I followed, but why did every woman he met (aged 16 to 55, abandoned, upper class or sexually mature) want to bend over and offer him her ass, when as he himself liked to point out he was a broken down, depressed alcoholic black-and-blue senior citizen? Nonsensical. Borderline misogynist.

[Simon Robs · Rating 3 out of 5]

I realized soon I'd already read this but so, ok, I'm a committed rereader no prob. books are meant for revisiting. You should be a little rough around the edges if you're going to enjoy his stuff - in these "MeToo" times (he's NOT that, though a letch through&through) it gets a little dicey to make lite of pervy inclinations whether fictional or not. So many of his latter for sure books feature geezerish male characters forever on the make or at least open to leering, lusting and loving the female form, especially the multiform derrière. I should have kept count of butt/ass mentions but then wouldn't that make me a bit pervy, too? His standard reaction to an espied rump is registered as a nut- twinge, buzz, clutch, jolt, twitch, etc. So, anyway, this kind of concupiscence laced into a usually goofy good story, then, enjoy the [other] interesting things that occupy his mind (as he was writing this book no doubt). Do you like hunting, fly fishing, riparian settings in the wilds of Upper Michigan and elsewhere? Are you a gourmand, a lover of wild game, fine wines, good whiskey and native American lore? Does the regular Joe resonate in your world?

Ex-detective Sunderson of the Michigan State Police is that joe on the trail of a pedophilic cult leader who has coopted native American mystical ways to promote his own seedy agenda which Sunderson though just recently retired will make his last case a personal one. He's trying to come to terms with being 65 and still horny as a barn goat with hankering for young stuff (his are of legal age) himself. It's fairly comical if you can get over the pathetic nature of nature's residual biology. There's so much more with allusions to history, politics, religion and books. I love his stuff and resonate with his places and penchants - a nice butt too. Lets pour a stiff whiskey and reminisce those backseat days of coming-of-age wonder!

[Al · Rating 2 out of 5]

I keep thinking Jim Harrison is the kind of writer I'm going to love, and I keep being disappointed. Frankly, I don't know what to make of this particular book. Viewed from one perspective, it's a rambling, disjointed sort of journal kept by the protagonist, a recently retired Michigan State Policeman who is on a goofy mission to pin a sex-with-minors charge on a cult leader. Harrison lays on the sex and drinking nonstop, even though the poor old guy is 65 and pretty broken down, and tries to leaven the dissipation with pithy philosophical asides and sophisticated references to all manner of literature, music, etc. It's almost incoherent, and sometimes just annoying. From this perspective, it looks like Harrison came up with a minor plot idea and sat down to write the book straight out without even rereading it. (I had this same reaction to Elmore Leonard's recent Road Dogs.)
But there must be more to it. Harrison's written some really good stuff, and he's not a hack. Am I missing something here? It's possible, but if so, it's beyond me. I have to conclude by saying that, at least in my opinion, if it's good Jim Harrison writing you want, look elsewhere.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't finish this one. It was too disgusting and full of stereotypes. By chapter 2, there was no actual plot having to do with the cult or cult leader that is being investigated. The 65 year old alcoholic protagonist P.I. has however, had sex with or been propositioned by every female so far mentioned in the book, with the exception of his next door neighbor. His neighbor, however, is a 16 year old goth girl hacker who lives on her own and whose bedroom window he peeps in each morning. She is clearly set up to be his investigative 'partner' for the rest of the novel, since he's computer illiterate.

Maybe I'm the wrong audience for this book. It seems to be targeted at older males and fans of noir films.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Immediately I was hooked by this slightly odd, fat typeface (which goes unnamed), and the opening setting of the wintry shore of Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Detective Simon Sunderson seems to be in a permanent funk, depressed by his recent divorce, and constantly leching over women and teenage girls (that part wasn't appealing). He has moved a bookcase in front of one of his dining room windows so that when he wants to spy on the 16-year-old next door neighbor Mona, he only has to move one book aside (Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860 by Richard Slotkin). Mona obliges by often doing things topless or nude. At his retirement party, Sunderson has sex with one of the strippers from behind up against a woodpile, in view of attendees. The stripper belongs to a religious cult whose Great Leader he aims to investigate. Oddly enough, the Great Leader also has a thing for teen girls (and younger). Sunderson wants to nail him on this.

He follows the cult from the U.P., to the Arizona desert, where the rear end of a Mexican drug cartel kingpin's sister entices him, to Nebraska. At every turn are butts and panties, taunting him. Also, his mother is highly critical. (For one thing, she has heard about the sex against the woodpile.)

I liked that Harrison was always telling us what Sunderson is reading. He mostly reads nonfiction about American Indians (his favorite is Playing Indian by Philip J. Deloria). He's an old horny alcoholic but he has a life of the mind. The poor parenting done to Mona reminds him of "Dickens's Bleak House, which he had read in college and which made him feel like he was trapped in a dentist office every time he picked it up."

Harrison's style, comic, meandering, and ruminative, is very agreeable. "While working at a bag of delicious local pistachios he noted the loose wattles of all the retirees eating big breakfasts and muttering with full mouths about the dangers presented by Obama." He gives a hug to a woman who has told him that her second round of chemo isn't working, "So this is good-bye." "She was made up of Tinkertoys, fragile sticks out of which you could make little buildings and bridges but not human bodies."

The Sunderson family gathers at matriarch Hulda's Arizona home for Thanksgiving and Hulda delivers the blessing:

"Let us bow our heads and close our eyes in prayer. Our heavenly father we thank thee for our ample foodstuffs on this gladsome day. Whilst thou art in heaven with my husband and son sitting on your right hand we thank thee that we are still alive and kicking. As thou knowest it was a tough year with my stroke putting me on the fritz for a while. We thank thee for curing Berenice's sprained ankle which she got tripping over the hose Bob left on the front steps after he washed her car. We thank thee for Bob's prosperity which keeps our hides and hair together in these troubled times. We thank thee for getting Simon back on his feet after he got beat up by a Mexican gang. Lord, protect the borders of our country. We pray that niece Valerie finds a job and keeps her body pure for the hubby in her future..."

A strange thing about Harrison's writing is the lack of commas. Sometimes they're there, but often we get sentences like "Wonderful dear." And "Will this pointless lust never end he thought?"

There are also some egregious grammatical errors involving pronouns - not in dialogue, so we know they're coming from the author. I was gnashing my teeth at several points.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me start by saying, I love Jim Harrison. He's one of my favorite writers. But increasingly his work has meandered into unfathomable instrospection. While this novel has an actual plot, a crisis, and resolution, Harrison's loose associations rival many unmedicated schizophrenics. His retired UP Michigan detective character Sunderson is another variation of the Browndog/Michael persona from previous novels and novellas. While I'm happy to spend more time with this 'guy', I'd rather he reprise my all time favorite character Dalva. THE GREAT LEADER is much more readable than RETURNING TO EARTH or THE ENGLISH MAJOR, but I must consider whether Harrison's ruminations are manageable any longer. If perhaps, as he ages and comes closer to his mortality, he is more concerned with replaying histories rather than living a vibrant life.

[M. Sarki · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://rogueliterarysociety.com/f/th...

A Jim Harrison novel is more about his own life than merely telling a story. But Harrison no doubt is a very good storyteller. Not so hot a detective, but certainly good enough to have been born of northern Michigan seed. Harrison is a man of the woods and streams, not to mention his longing for the solitude mother nature provides him. Writing about what he loves is a good place to start, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan knows some things that the rest of us do not.

...It was good to live in a place largely ignored by the rest of the world…

Being a northern Michigan native myself I know something about solitude and nature. After living in Louisville, Kentucky for thirty-one years I couldn’t wait to get back to my beloved Huron National Forest, Gray and Silver Creeks, and the mighty Ausable River. Our cabin was our sanctuary and we were lucky to own it for fifteen years before selling out in order to hit the road in an eighteen foot travel trailer. There are many places that offer solitude similar to Harrison’s love of Michigan. Even Colorado has creeks and rivers galore and we can attest to its gentle caress on any damaged soul.

...A creek is more powerful than despair…

Detective Sunderson is well-worn having just recently retired from the Michigan State Police, an institution known and respected for its good work and sense of fairness. Though retired, Sunderson cannot quit tracking the pedophile cult king called The Great Leader. Locations ripe with details only someone familiar with the area could know, Sunderson leads his reader from the woods of upper Michigan to the desert rocks of Patagonia, Arizona as well as to the sandhills of Nebraska. Look up any tavern, hotel, or restaurant mentioned in his books and you will find Harrison is not making up these locations. Making note of the natural monuments, grasslands, and Nature Conservancy holdings offer far more intel than the typical potboiler. For the nature lover and traveler The Great Leader could be listed under the heading of travelogue and still be worth reading for its generous guides and information.

...She was a bit solid for his usual taste but then he was a man of the U.P. where the larger woman is favored likely due to the wickedly cold climate…

Not unlike his other novels, food essays, and memoirs in Harrison’s oeuvre, most of the women are husky with ample posteriors. Many have large busts as well. Seems to be a trend of men from Harrison’s neck of the woods. The fact that he was married to his wife Linda for several decades and with her raised two daughters, it is interesting to note that he loved writing graphic sex descriptions and describing women’s naked bodies. But nonetheless Harrison is a literary treasure and must be forgiven for any crudeness addressing the man. It was his natural garb and he wore it well. His world view is often stated, and obviously great thought and meditation have been engaged in his time of solitude. The irreverence Harrison employs from time to time is both refreshing and uplifting. And his magnificent body of work provides a literary meal the size of his great appetite.

[Cynthia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a good book. Quite a few problems with it. I could discuss the entire list, but for brevity and clarity's sake, I'll stick with the top two problems.

Badly written. I've heard of Harrison, previously read some of his autobiography, and knew that he's written two dozen plus books, so I decided to give this one a try. Not a good decision. The writing itself is surprisingly amateurish. Distractingly so. The prose reads as if it were written by a teenaged creative writing student, and not a talented one. Vague, run-on sentences and paragraphs. Silly little scenes/vignettes that don't seem in the least bit plausible. Character interactions that aren't at all realistic. These scenes and interactions are often just plain cringeworthy. Harrison also breaks from the narrative on a fairly frequent basis to explain something incredibly obvious about what just happened. These explanations aren't only distracting, they are absolutely pointless. Bad writing. Bad, bad writing. I would give more examples, but, really, why bother?

Second problem. An unbelievable and unsympathetic protagonist. We, the readers, are told at the beginning how superlatively smart Sunderson is. We are told that he was a "brilliant" student of history, and that, on the police entrance exam, he earned the highest score of any applicant "ever." Problem? Sunderson isn't smart at all. Nothing he does, says, thinks, or believes, not once in the entire book, seems anything more than average. And that's being generous. He actually comes across as being a blockheaded dolt, lacking any specific intelligence or the slightest subtlety of thought. And he is also somewhat repulsive. A grumpy, sleazy, repressed guy with no intellectual life whatsoever. You wouldn't want to spend any time with Sunderson in real life, so why spend hours upon hours with him in the literary realm? Not worth it. Not worth it at all.

[Jeb Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another wonderful read! Jim Harrison never fails to entertain, educate and enthrall. I have read almost everything he has written, including the poems and essays, and I am consistently inspired by his monumental respect for nature and all her creatures(save humans of course who try as they might to "be good" are usually best relegated to long walks). The Great Leader has everything I love in a Harrison novel: bawdy humor, frisky athletic sex either real or imagined, plentiful worship of the female posterior, copious amounts of meaty meals and booze, long meditations on man's inhumanity to man and nature, and the ultimate power of nature to at least temporarily heal even the most tortured souls. In The Great Leader as in many of Harrison's novels the author's loyalty to his Native American heritage comes shining through, both in the ruminations of the protagonist Sunderson and his Indian pal Marion, as well as in the climactic action of the final chapters. This Harrison novel, like The English Teacher not long before it, fits like a trusty, comfortable old flannel: familiar and well worn, sturdy and reliable. It's almost as if the author has given his loyal fans a gift, as beautiful as the Russell Chatham paintings that grace his book jackets, by writing a story that he has told over and over again, the one his readers know so well, with all the the familiar characters and expected surprises. To those new to Jim Harrison, welcome: you have just struck the mother lode of classic contemporary American storytellling. For those who feel we have been feasting at Jim Harrison's table for years: belly up! You're in for a real treat!

[Crystal · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am having the worst luck with books lately...this one seemed so promising, the description said the story was set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and was about a recently retired police detective that was investigating a cult that had set up camp near his home. In reality, this book was about a perverted, alcoholic 65-year-old man who somehow managed to have sex with or want to have sex with every woman he met in the story. Many of these women were many, many years younger than him, but that did not seem to matter. Nor did the fact that he did not seem to be particularly attractive or even remotely interesting as a person or that he had just met most of these women. This book seems to have been written by a 15-year-old boy, it was so over the top with the sexual references and scenarios. Besides this ridiculous aspect of the story, there actually was no story. The detective (Sunderson) spent most of the time reminiscing about a trip to Italy that he had taken with his ex-wife (who he is still obsessed with, 3 years after the divorce) and trying to "analyze" why the cult leader was so interested in young girls (completely ignoring the fact that he himself was constantly peeping/flirting with his 16-year-old neighbor). The cult moved from the UP to Arizona and then to Nebraska, so the detective "followed," though he never really interacted with the cult or did anything that resembled detective work. The end was so anticlimactic and uneventful it made me hate the book even more.

[Bookbeaver · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Harrison decided to put religion, sex, and money in his crosshairs you had to know he, more than any other author today, would hit the bull's eye. Humor, insight, and a good deal of attention toward the female derriere. There is simply no other experience in current american literature like reading a Jim Harrison novel. The only thing better? Reading his poetry and a new collection is due out any day, if not already. There should be a t-shirt with that skinny cartoon character reading a Harrison book - life (indeed) is good.

[Cindy B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lead character matures & plot is okay, however, I did use fast forward on the audio version - a lot. Nearly constant references to male urges would've had me slogging thru otherwise. Narration is fine.

[Christophe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roman policier un peu glauque et cru mais l'imagination de Jim Harrison est prolifique et le récit devient peu à peu captivant. Grâce au pouvoir rédempteur de la Nature, l'auteur est finalement plus optimiste qu'on ne pourrait penser sur la nature humaine.

[Jim]

First Harrison book I have read. Doing this as a combo of audio book and kindle from Libby.

[Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sunderson is alone. Professionally, he is a heavy-drinking has been, if ever was one.

A detective, Sunderson is certainly no dummy. He is well-read, quick-of-mind, and hip to the ways of the world. But his intelligence often coils inward, and feeds upon itself. It is more ready to take a dark, cynical, and self-destructive path. So much so, it can be exhausting to follow Sunderson’s thread of thinking through the normal routines of his every day.

Sunderson has a particular penchant for history books. His sexual drive, when not drowned out with Schnapps or Canadian Whiskey, still beats; but it beats in an unanswered, creepy, desperate, and chauvinist way.

Sunderson, by his own admission, is a "waffling geezer." Age sixty-five, and on the eve of his retirement from the detective force, Sunderson embarks on one last mission to uncover the potential criminal activities of an elusive cult leader named Dwight.

As the story of Sunderson's search begins to unfold, it becomes apparent he is looking for far more than just Dwight. Retirement perplexes Sunderson, as does the task of reconciling the reality of his old age with his sexuality, masculinity, and urge to live, and to understand “money, sex, religion” and the ways of the world.

Sunderson is also searching for the shape of his post-working, post-divorce life.

In his Jacob-in-the-desert, half-search for spiritual meaning, Sunderson’s conscience often haunts and paralyzes him. He is riddled with guilt over his public actions, so acutely that he can only find respite in amber liquid and awe-inspiring landscapes.

At his retirement party, in the early part of the novel, Sunderson engages in a lewd and desperate sexual act in a parking lot, unhidden from the vision of friends and coworkers. Not long after, he is overcome with shame and guilt, which is only compounded when his mother finds out about the act, and confronts him.

At one point in the novel, in a rather biblical way, Sunderson is literally stoned into unconsciousness in the middle of the Arizona desert. The desolation of the desert, and Sunderson's bruised and battered body creates a sort of Jim Harrison take on the story of Jesus. It is a Harrisonian reinvention of a biblical parable. One that highlights the weight of Sunderson’s mortal struggle to make sense of his life, which for Sunderson feels to be waning more readily with each new day.

In addition to these raw, modern parables of revelation, steeped in this novel, is Harrison’s inclination to want to morph time into a more disturbing thought-scape. The past is not a source of inspiration or sustenance, like Proust's nostalgia-filled world of lost time. Rather the past, for Sunderson, is a time of remembered emotions and energies that linger half-dead in his rapidly aging body. The past, as a reminder of lost youth and vigor, mocks. It’s a constant reminder of what is gone.

Sunderson’s search for Dwight is often distracted with this tortuous obsession over the lost world of his own past. The future, his search for inspiration and meaning, fights the enemy of ennui and fear of his own mortality, as much as it does an elusive cult leader.

These more universal enemies (i.e. fear of death, regret of past mistakes), in Harrison’s newest work of fiction, prove to be far more powerful than some cult leader, who like any sense of meaning for Sunderson seems to push ever forward, just beyond the edge of the fumbling detective’s fingertips.

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wondered why Harrison decided to write this novel as a detective story, when that part of it was quite farcical. The better story was that about the just-retired detective coming to terms with a divorce from his lifelong partner, his partiality to alcohol, his flagging libido that is transforming him into a dirty old man, and the prospect of retirement itself. His retirement party ends up in a sexual incident that sets Sunderson off as no better than the sexual predators he had pursued as a cop.

What follows is a rambling narrative of ex-detective Sunderson's travels from Michigan's Upper Peninsula to Arizona and back as he latches on to a final case that he is determined to solve before going out to pasture. The hunt gives Sunderson the excuse to delay retirement for just a bit more. The case itself is to prove that a charismatic religious cult leader is a pedophile and a con artist. The challenge for Sunderson is that he himself is having fantasies over his 16 year old neighbour, Mona, who undresses for his benefit with her bedroom window open.Mona is a conflicted young woman, living with absentee parents and looking at Sunderson and his ex-wife as surrogate parents. She also becomes his technical research assistant feeding Sunderson with the dirt on the cult leader's shadowy life.

What worked for me in this book is that Harrison lays his protagonist bare, warts and all. Sunderson's rabid sex drive is his lifeforce under threat, and therefore transcends sleaze to sympathy. The scenes of the outdoors are well drawn and one gets a sense, feel and taste of the terrain that Sunderson traverses. His recurring guilt over the divorce, his raging libidinous dreams, and his frightening thoughts of being a nobody, post-retirement, weave in and out of the narrative, while Sunderson liberally tanks up with plenty of alcohol along his peregrinations.

That Sunderson is able to reconcile his feelings towards Mona and his ex-wife without breaching the bounds of propriety, while the great cult leader goes from bad to worse in his assaults on young girls, is what sets apart hero from villain. Perhaps this contrast is needed for us to understand Sunderson, but the title of Great Leader is a misnomer for the cult leader is just a foil in this novel which is really the story about our Great Detective.

[Susan Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book was very entertaining because it reflected on the plight of an aging man who feels sexual angst, and urges for young women. I was very entertained by the method of writing, and the dismissive way Harrison talked about the character’s bad habits, drinking and otherwise. But as the story unfolds, I become more filled with compassion for the character, Sunderson , and his loneliness and deep regret over the failure of his marriage. The story begins at the timeright before his retirement when he had begun an investigation of a cult leader/ sexual pervert. He becomes obsessed with finding the cult leader – called the Great Leader.
As the story develops, I learned about the character’s deep connection with nature, with fishing for brook trout, and his love of the Upper Peninsula and its harsh weather. Wonderful descriptions of nature and scenes of the American landscapes are throughout – contrasting with the many humorous episodes of his relationships with people. At the end, he seems to settle into retirement by taking long walks and cutting back on his drinking. A new connection develops between he and his ex wife. It ended rather abruptly, but all in all was a great read.

[David Guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I believe I've said before, I read everything Jim Harrison writes as soon as I can get my hands on it. He calls this book a mystery, but it's actually just one more novel about a guy who eats and drinks too much and lusts after women, at least one of them inappropriately young. He's supposedly (in the mystery part) pursuing a child molester who is the head of a religious cult, but I didn't find that part of the book convincing or interesting. What is always interesting in a Harrison novel is his picture of daily life as it lived, and how beautiful and precious it is, even when the guy living it is a total screw-up. I just love the way the man writes. This is not the book to start with (Dalva or Legends of the Fall). But real fans--of which there are many--will want to run off and pick it up.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

harrison is a wonderful writer who is equally adept at poetry and prose. in the novel he brilliantly balances themes of law, teenage sexuality, parenting, and self-restraint. the characters are drawn with beautiful strokes (with mona being a sort of randy lisbeth salander), and the protaganist a sturdy harrison male with his fingers in different areas of knowledge, whose mind constantly pops out insightful little nuggets of wisdom. the plot is satisfying with the requisite turns (inculding a stoning), and some emotional satisfaction at the end. my only complaint would be, harrison is such a great writer that he perfectly nailed the themes chosen, yet the themes didn't feel large enough to contain harrison's talent. alas, i'll now have to go back and try and read some of his longer works!

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was terrible, through and through. The writing was sloppy, the plot was barely legitimate (and incredibly unrealistic) and most of the characters were ridiculous. Alcoholic retired cop goes on a meandering hunt for a cult leader he suspects is abusing children. Our narrator seems to bang or fantasize about banging pretty much every female character except his mother and sisters (but including a cousin and an underage neighbor). To balance these character flaws, the author feebly attempts to “make him smart” by referencing random books and NPR. I should’ve trusted my instincts and but this book down after chapter 1.

[kp · Rating 1 out of 5]

Goodreads should have a status update for giving up because I have better things to do than finish this. I found aspects of its premise interesting, but soon began to feel oppressed by its testosterone-soaked neuroticism and finally concluded that the writing wasn't good enough to facilitate empathy or aesthetic appreciation. Harrison apparently has many fans, but I found this novel a sort of long, slow wank that didn't seem to be heading to a climax.

[Leslie]

I couldn't even finish this book. I was so hopeful that I would like Harrison. I hated the way he portrayed Yooper women. I couldn't stand his main character. Seriously?? The man had a fantasy about or a crush on every single female he encountered. It didn't matter how old she was! YUCK! I finally just closed it. No thanks.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm just glad to be finished. Marred by too much lechery and a disproportionate emphasis on the inconceivably-blessed sex life of the old guy protagonist (who seems a wish-fulfillment stand-in for Jim Harrison himself, plus the left-eye and staggering libido.)

[GeneralTHC · Rating 3 out of 5]

3-stars

Not sure what to think about this one. The guy obviously has superior writing skills, but I didn't love the story. I was quite amazed, though, at how he's able to advance the narrative while going off on what seems at first like digression after digression. Simply amazing.

[Jim Leckband · Rating 3 out of 5]

A retired Upper Peninsula (UP in Michigan) detective is on the trail of a middling cult leader. Mostly the book is ruminations from the mind of an old man not unlike the author, i.e. Harrison just says whatever he wants and fictionalizes it as the ex-Detective Sunderson's musings.

That being said, those musings are entertaining and not always politically correct. I don't like to make the mistake of taking the character for the author and damning the author because of the character. This character is supposed to be flawed - he's a drunk and a horndog. However, he has a moral compass that means he won't act on his worst temptations. His worst temptation is his next door sixteen year old neighbor who is wise beyond her years. But still 16 and knows he peeps at her through his window and likes it.

"Lolita" is brought in at the end. The cult leader likes young girls (is there a cult leader who doesn't go for young girls or boys?) and his system is a structure to trap them. Harrison's conceit is that his cult is only different in degree than other systems that use the unholy trinity of sex, religion and money (like, say, the Republican party). Sunderson (son of sunder - a broken man) is the everyman who is not wholly good, but is good enough not to be bad if you know what I mean. He is civilization and its laws - broken people who try to live with the brokenness by acknowledging that there are actions that end up in broken people that must be stopped. A "Great Leader" is the opposite of this - breaking people is their raison d'etre. The reader is left to ponder whether there is any correlation to present time America.