The Hemingway Caper

Joe Barley #2

by Eric Wright

Joe Barley, full-time English professor and part-time private detective, is given a simple case: to track Jason Tyler and find proof of his adultery. But as he's investigating, Barley stumbles across the story of a missing manuscript containing writings by a young Ernest Hemingway.

What is Tyler's connection to the Hemingway papers? And why does Tyler's wife insist that Barley stay on the case, long after he's come up with the required evidence of Tyler's infidelity?

While these questions hang over Barley, his own life is complicated by academic politics, and challenges to his monogamous relationship with his longtime partner, Carole.

Set in Toronto, The Hemingway Caper is the second book in the Joe Barley series. The first, The Kidnapping of Rosie Dawn, won the prestigious Barry Award.

Genres: Mystery

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

There is more than one author with this name in the database. Not all books on this profile belong to the same author.

Eric Wright was born in London, England and immigrated to Canada in 1951. He is the award-winning author of seventeen crime novels, including his first novel, The Night the Gods Smiled, which won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel, the Crime Writer's Association's John Creasey Award, and the City of Toronto Book Award. His memoir, Always Give a Penny to a Blind Man, about growing up poor in working-class London, was published in 1999.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhere between two and a generous rounded-up-to three stars. This book is a decent read. Not terrible, not fantastic, but decent.

I enjoyed the storyline, and the mystery part of the book. However, the mystery part was too small a part of the book. Much of the words (I cannot say plot line) were dedicated to the intricacies of the politics of academia. I work in academia. The politics were shown fairly accurately, and if anything with a generosity of spirit to the academics (they can be much more petty than depicted). BUT, I picked up a mystery novel and very little of the book was mystery.

I also found it difficult to warm up to protagonist, Joe Barley, or really even any of the main characters. Mazaka had potential but only made brief appearances at the beginning for Joe to patronize her, recognize that was what he was doing, but then doing it anyway and then later for a 'joke's on Joe moment' at the end.

Hmm... maybe I should not have rounded up to three stars but it is the first book of a new series. This one is the only one that my library has from this series. I might look up others from this author's other series... I would actively reject another by the author but doubt I will actively look for more of his books either.


Note: I gave this book a full review because this book was published by The Dundurn Group.

I used to give full reviews for all of the books that I rated on GR. However, GR's new giveaway policies (Good Reads 2017 November Giveaways Policies Changes) have caused me to change my reviewing decisions. These new GR policies seem to harm smaller publishing efforts in favour of providing advantage to the larger companies, (GR Authors' Feedback) the big five publishers (Big Five Publishers). So, because of these new GR policies from now on I will be supporting smaller publishing efforts by only giving full reviews to books published by: publishing businesses outside the big five companies, indie publishers, and self-published authors. This book was published by one of these smaller publishing efforts so I have given it a full review.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this hot on the heels of The Kidnapping of Rosie Dawn. Wright maintained the same style, got in some deeper digs at departmental politics, but the plot was pretty lame. And it was fun to read the Hemingway imitations.