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.

Best known as a writer of award-winning detective fiction, including the Charlie Salter mysteries, Eric Wright has also written a comic novel (Moodies Tale) and Always Give a Penny to a Blind Man, his 1999 memoir which was nominated for the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction. (The first chapter of that memoir first appeared in The New Yorker.) Eric helped to set up and was the first director of the publishing program at Ryerson University. He lives in Toronto.

Eric Wright's profile page

Eric Wright is a wonderful writer with a deft, light touch. The plot hangs together, the characters come alive. There is humour and mystery and it is a pleasure to read.

Garrett Wilson, Independently Reviewed, Summer 2004

Wright, with four series on the go, is at his best in the latest in the Joe Barley seriesa plot with unusual twists, some eccentric charactgers and Joe Barley falling into one humorous situation after another.

Chronicle Herald

well-told and a pleasure to read.

Quill and Quire

Joe Barley is Wright's best creation since Charlie Salter and, never mind Hemingway and his papers, Wright himself is a Canadian treasure.

London Free Press

Wright maintains a firm grip on the material and demonstrates an old master's ability to juggle several narrative balls at once without letting us know, till quite late in the performance which of them will eventually land with the most resounding force.

National Post

The story has Wright's usual elegance and charm, along with a delightful set of characters and a good plot."

Globe and Mail

Light and amusing. A definite contender for the beach book pile.

Times-Colonist

The Hemingway Caper fits nicely into the mode of a master craftsman of the novelgreat reading.

Regina Leader Post

the author's bemused, behind-the-scenes explorations provide agreeable, if gentle, satire of campus politics.

Hamilton Spectator