COLIN Bateman's extreme imagination has calmed from the days of terror-wreaking Christian fundamentalists promoting the new Messiah, machine gun-toting nuns and reincarnated Native American princesses.

Wild About Harry seems strangely sober - by Bateman's standards, at least.

But the story continues at the same ferocious pace as its six predecessors, another in his stable of tales so fast-moving and gripping that it makes the reader's outside world disappear.

It's one of the most envied writing talents, and one so few own, to tell a story in such an easy flowing, enticing way that enjoying it is effortless. Bateman has achieved this in every one of his novels.

His latest tells of Harry McKee, a TV chef popular with his fans, particularly the women, and a despicable, sleazy, drunken and selfish character whose life is falling apart.

But, after a severe dose of amnesia following a beating on a drink-addled night, the middle-aged slob has returned to being an 18-year-old innocent, confused by a reputation that sickens him and desperate to save a life he never knew.