The Body in the Record Room: A Mystery

by Joe Barone

Overview

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.

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429939720
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/14/2008
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

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.

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.

Editorial Reviews

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.)

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Publishers Weekly

An asylum inmate survives personal demons and the social injustices running rampant in the 1950s.

Roy, who insists that he's Roy Rogers, finds the old priest's body in the records room of the Sunrise Mental Hospital. Since he isn't supposed to be there and would be medicated to a fare-thee-well if found out, he gets his buddy Harry to help him remove the body to the stables, dig a hole for it, cover it with straw and leave it there for the horses to poop on. But the riddle of who killed the priest and why fascinate Roy, who like his cowboy hero wants justice to triumph and truth to win out. His curiosity sets in motion queries that will tie the old priest to the murder of Marcia Weinhart, who was left for dead on the altar of St. Adrian's Church back in 1934. Even after another priest dies, Roy's detecting work continues to be hampered by other inmates' paranoia and shame, and the fact that power trumps truth and money trumps power. Still, Roy, like his hero, persists to uncover a saga of clerically sanctioned debauchery, familial vengeance and civic disdain for the welfare of the people sequestered in Sunrise.

First novelist Barone, an ordained minister who grew up scampering around an institution his father worked in, has delivered the least preachy, most intense sermon on tolerance you're likely to hear. Roy's return will be welcomed.

Kirkus Reviews