The body in the record room : a mystery

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Title:

The body in the record room : a mystery

Author:

Barone, Joe, 1942-

ISBN:

9780312384104

Edition:

1st ed.

Publication Information:

New York : Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Minotaur, 2008.

Physical Description:

x, 262 p. ; 22 cm.

Personal Subject:

Rogers, Roy, 1911-1998-Influence-Fiction.

Subject Term:

Mentally ill -- Fiction.

Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction.

Psychiatric hospitals -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Missouri -- Fiction.

Genre:

Mystery fiction.

Summary:

It's 1954. When a mental patient who calls himself Roy Rogers finds a body in the hospital record room, his investigation leads him to the murder of Marcia Weinhart. Twenty years earlier, authorities found her mutilated corpse lying on the altar of St. Adrian's Catholic Church in Sunrise, Missouri. Roy, his friend Harry, and Harry's beloved dog, Bullet, move through the buildings and grounds of the Sunrise Mental Hospital, a thousand-acre facility with more than two thousand patients and eight hundred employees. They go from the record room to the hospital's Catholic chapel, from the blacksmith shop to the hospital cemetery, looking for victims of the terrible abuse behind the Weinhart murder. In the process, Roy comes to better understand the strength and moral stature of his hero, the real Roy Rogers. He is able to overcome the terror of his past, choosing to forgo violence and work within the law.

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Summary

Roy, his friend Harry, and Harry's beloved dog, Bullet, move through the buildings and grounds of the Sunrise Mental Hospital, a thousand-acre facility with more than two thousand patients and eight hundred employees. They go from the record room to the hospital's Catholic chapel, from the blacksmith shop to the hospital cemetery, looking for victims of the terrible abuse behind the Weinhart murder.

In the process, Roy comes to better understand the strength and moral stature of his hero, the real Roy Rogers. He is able to overcome the terror of his past, choosing to forgo violence and work within the law.

Joe Barone's debut makes for an intriguing mystery while also elevating old-time heroes and their values.

Author Notes

Joe Barone is retired after twenty-five years as an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He is a graduate of Missouri University with a Masters of Divinity from the Phillips Graduate Seminary in Enid, Oklahoma. He is presently a member of the Columbia, Missouri, Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship. Joe was raised on the grounds of the Nevada, Missouri, State Hospital #3. His father was a medical doctor who was the longtime superintendent of the institution. Joe lives with his wife in Columbia, Missouri.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Set in Sunrise, Mo., in 1954, Barone's engaging first novel offers some timely lessons about the corrosive effects of greed and prejudice. When a mental patient, who's convinced he's cowboy star Roy Rogers, and his fellow inmate and trusted friend, Harry, stumble on a dead man in Sunrise State Hospital's record room, they inadvertently shed unwelcome light on Sunrise's darkest secret. As people start getting murdered all around Sunrise, the town blames the hospital for the violence and demands its immediate shutdown. The hospital closure would not so coincidentally result in a financial boon for its opponents. Roy and Harry, falsely accused of the murders, must fight their own insanity in an effort to solve the mystery that's been plaguing the town and their beloved hospital for 20 years. While too many minor characters clutter the plot, readers will cheer the triumph of old-fashioned virtues in the end. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

Stand by for a very clever, fresh, and engaging mystery from first-time author Barone. It's set in the mid-1950s at a Missouri mental institution. Its hero is a patient who calls himself Roy Rogers (he seems to understand he is not really the cowboy star). With the assistance of a fellow patient and a few friends, Roy investigates the two-decades-old murder of a woman whose body was found on the hospital grounds. The story is told in the first person by Roy, who, while taking us through his investigation, tells us what it's like to live in a mental institution. Barone himself spent many years living on the grounds of just such an institution (his father was the superintendent), and his intimate knowledge of the environment and residents is reflected in this highly detailed novel. Barone does an excellent job at making us very curious about the past life of the book's narrator: why did he choose to be, of all people, Roy Rogers? A solid, suspenseful mystery with an unusual setting and a likable narrator with his own secrets.--Pitt, David Copyright 2008 Booklist

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Summary

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Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Booklist Review

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