Joe Barley
Created by Eric Wright.

JOE BARLEY is a part-time sessional instructor of English literature at a community college in Toronto who also occasionally works as a private eye, often employed by a security company as a "watcher." Subplots involving the college and his sometimes-messy personal life with longtime partner Carole also crop up.

By his second appearance, The Hemingway Caper (2003), Joe seems to be taking the P.I. gig a bit more seriously,' snooping around, working the cheat beat, collecting photographic evidence of adultery for suspicious clients and the like, when he stumbles upon the story of a missing Hemingway manuscript. Toronto (World class, boys, world class!) has always taken an inordinate amount of pride in remembering Hemingway's brief stint as a reporter for the Toronto Star, but now it looks like he may have also left behind an entire book.

Author Eric Wright is best known for the excellent (but definitely non-hard-boiled) Charlie Salter mysteries featuring a career cop in Toronto, but he has also written two books about Lucy Trimble, a middle-aged librarian who inherits a detective agency.

NOVELS

• The Kidnapping of Rosie Dawn (2000). Buy this book
• The Hemingway Caper (2003). Buy this book
• A Likely Story (2010). Buy this book

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.