Definitely Harrison with the lack of need for money, food, and the use of the word otiose. Not as full of insights as his later works but on its way. Warlock's character was up and down and developed too rapidly and the old rich guy was a little outrageous. Still, it was Harrison. Just a little less heart felt. ( )

"Sometimes the only answer to death is lunch."

With that sentence, you know you're squarely in a Jim Harrison novel, in the territory of food, sex, and Big Questions navigated by his strangely obtuse protagonists. Also, you're missing the comma you'd expect after "sometimes," a rhythmic tic that's also typical of Harrison's writing. But Warlock isn't an entirely typical Harrison novel.

Harrison's novels, and especially his recent novels (True North, Returning to Earth, The English Major) tend to be muted, low-key affairs in which there's not much action but a great deal of language. In early novellas such as Legends of the Fall or Revenge, there's no shortage of action, but the action is realistic. Warlock is something of an exception, a larger-than-life tale which casts Lundgren as a gun-toting "troubleshooter" in the service of the eccentric inventor Dr. Rabun, whose home is guarded by lethal dogs.

It's the stuff of childish adventure stories, and it makes for a wild ride. Lundgren, indeed, is a childish man. Take his name, "Johnny," or the fact that he prefers the nickname "Warlock," bestowed on him during a childhood boy-scout camping trip. Take his habit of calling urine "pee-pee." Take, finally, the way he revels in his undercover job with its games of secrecy and its atmosphere of high drama. He's going to have to grow out of it. There's a plot twist waiting in the wings, of course, to force him to do just that.

Warlock is funny, original, and high-spirited. Worth reading.

brillant