I love to learn new words. And what can be more fun than learning them in a delicious fast read? Okay, so the main character sleeps around all the time, with married women in this book. He’s a character, not real. And if real people do it, unfortunately, they reap the consequences of their actions. The books are interesting. This one was McNally’s Caper.

balbriggan (underwear): A jersey, interlock, or ribbed knitted fabric made of cotton or cotton blends for the undergarment, t‑ shirt, or hosiery industry (… Amazing! A word only for the undergarment manufacturers of the world.)

negroni: The Negroni is a cocktail made with gin (I should have known. The main character is such a drinker he should have needed a liver transplant long before his 37th birthday, which has just passed in McNally’s Caper.)

neurasthenic: person suffering a nervous breakdown

anodyne: a pain relieving agent, less potent than an anesthetic or narcotic.

tanbark: bark rich in tannin; bruised and cut in pieces to use for tanning; spent tanbark used as a ground covering

brannigan: A noisy or confused quarrel. A drinking spree; a binge.

slumgullion: A watery meat stew. (Which doesn’t seem to make as much sense as most of the words do in context.)

shamus: private detective: someone who can be employed as a detective to collect information

oubliette: A dungeon reached by a trap door; starvation hole (In the book, it is clearly his office, which he complains has no window and is smaller than a walk in closet.) It would have been quite funny if I had known what an oubliette was without having to look it up.

ragout: (no umlauts or anything in the original) a stew made with meat, poultry, or fish, cooked simply with or without vegetables (I don’t see why he has suddenly become enamoured with food. Before it was all alcohol-related metaphors.)

molto vivace: the speed or pace of a given piece of music (Which does not make sense in the sentence. How could he wake “molto vivace”?)

pukka: lit. ripe; solid or permanent

chippy: A woman prostitute.

scrum: (no definition seems to fit. It’s either computers or rugby.) the formation used in the setplay restarting play after a knock-on or forward pass; a lightweight agile method for software development

degage: leg disengages off the floor (and I’m not sure I know any more than when I looked that up.)

sporran: a Scottish fanny pack worn in front of the kilt

inchoate: (I know I’ve learned this word before, but can’t remember what it means. Unfulfilled? Foolish? Hopeless? Those are adjectives that would fit the sentence.) something that has been begun but never completed (Yes, that works too.)