Joe Barley

Created by Eric Wright

JOE BARLEY is a part-time sessional instructor of English literature at Hambleton, a small community college in Toronto, while also occasionally moonlighting as a "watcher" by a local security company. 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.

It's a great excuse for Wright (and Barley) to indulge in some spot-on Papa parodies

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. Kindle it!
• A Likely Story (2010). Buy this book

RELATED LINKS

• Ontari-ari-ari-o

Private eyes from Ontario, including Toronto.

• Ernest Goes to Toronto

Robert Fulford's take on The Hemingway Caper, from The National Post.

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

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