The Big Seven

A Faux Mystery

By: Jim Harrison

Narrated by: Jim Meskimen

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 best-seller list and was a national best-seller 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.

©2015 Jim Harrison / Text from Nightwood by Djuna Barnes © 1937 by Djuna Barnes. First published in the United States by Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1937. Second American edition published by New Directions, 1946. First published as New Directions Paperbook 98 in 1961. Reissued as New Directions Paperbook 1049 in 2006. (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

lots of trees

Love Harrison's descriptions of rivers and trees and the people who value them. The story wrapped around these themes are just bonuses to me.

Not Harrison's best

This has its moments but the testosterone fueled navel gazing is a bit too much. Check out Harrison's novellas or poetry to see him on his A-game. Beautifully narrated, however.

A great sequel to The Great Leader

More great writing by Jim Harrison, and richly rewarding in the meditations and memories of Sunderson. The narration is excellent; I give it 4 stars only because the narrator mispronounces the names of some cities. For example, he fails to pronounce first word of Sault Saint Marie as "Sue" as anglophones do.

learn to pronounce the places in the book narrator

the constant mispronunciation of nearly every place the book is set in is extremely off putting and ruins an otherwise decent reading of a fine book

Less mystery than excuse for misogynistic misery

Articulate, meandering ( in a good way) but really not convinced that the repeated gratuitous sex ( think old man vs very young heroine) helps. Not sure why I stick with it. A few noble comments perhaps and great descriptions of food and fishing?