Barry Jones’ Cold Dinner

John Schlarbaum

Mystery – CAN $19.95

Wow… Delta, the home town of Steve Cassidy, a disgraced ex-cop turned super-sleuth private investigator looks eerily familiar to me.  If I was a betting woman (which I’m not, but in this case, I would be very comfortable betting the whole farm on it) I would say that the Furniture Appliance Store on the far right on the front cover of this book was exactly where I purchased my very first couch and chair, and had them deliver it to me, all the way to Owen Sound… just saying… that’s a true story!

Turns out, this book purchase called Barry Jones’ Cold Dinner was completely on purpose (compared to my sudden willy-nilly purchases of the past)… I marched into a huge Chapters Bookstore in Waterloo, directly over to the Mystery section under the letter ”S” and picked it up, along with its partner, Book #2 in the Steve Cassidy Mystery Series.  Technically, there’s no point in buying one without the other, in my opinion.  The second book is called When Angels Fail To Fly, but I’ll talk about that in a later post, because I’m only half way through it at this point.

I smiled when I was first introduced to Steve Cassidy, the main character.  The first line is simply, “Steven.”  It is spoken from the lips of his angelic high school sweetheart (we all have one of those we find hard to forget) and I noticed that she used his full name, instead of the shortened version that everyone else uses (well, all except his mother, of course).  You could feel the instant bond between them and the love that was once was as big as the universe… and obviously still lurking beneath the surface, of which neither one wanted to openly admit.

This book was different from most mysteries I was prone to reading.  It was told in the first person, which allows you to follow the private investigator through each step of the mystery solving process, from the first clue to the last clue, as if you were standing behind him in the shadows, watching his every move… possibly, just like you were stepping into his life and becoming him. 

I must admit that the reason I read mysteries, is so that I can solve the puzzle before I read the ending and say, “I totally knew it!  I had that figured out way back on page such-in-such.”  Yes, it is like a little competition with myself, trying to race against the clock, or in this case, race against the turning of each page.  I even keep notes as I read along with people’s names and references… I sometimes have to flip back a few pages and read the conversation between people again, just so that I can solve it faster.  I suppose it is a race against the author in a way… I want to be able to write the author and say, “Hey, this was way too easy, even for a strawberry-blonde!  You need to get us more confused if you want to sell any more books in your future.”  Ha!  Which truthfully, I would never do anyway… but I would at least think about it!  There was no need for any of that kind of thinking while reading this book.

John Schlarbaum

In this case, I have a confession to make… I purchased this book for a big reason.  I personally know the author, and have known him since grade school… how cool is that?  John Schlarbaum was a fellow student with me growing up in the same three communities that were all nestled together like a tiny city, Rodney, West Lorne and Dutton.  I had lost touch with him after graduating from high school, and I had no idea of whatever happened to him… and if you’re counting, it was almost one hundred years ago (at least that’s what it feels like), since I had last talked to him.  This first Steve Cassidy mystery centers around three tiny communities that have similar landmarks and street names as the ones I mentioned above… I recognized many things that made it a very entertaining read for me.

As I was attending a high school girls weekend with my girlfriends of the 1984 Glee Club (yes we had one back then too, we just didn’t sing) one of the girls mentioned they ran into John and he was a full-fledged author now… someone way more important than me!  When my ears heard this, I was automatically intrigued, because of course, I pretend to be a writer on a daily basis (and I DO NOT have a book published yet, lots of them in draft stages though, just saying), and here’s one of the plain old normal guys that I went to school with, who was now famous!  I don’t remember him being interested in writing?  Damn!  I had to check this out! 

So, long story short, I did just that… and was pleasantly surprised with his writing ability.  He kept me interested, and I must say that I loved his Steve Cassidy character, along with all his witty sarcasm and his magnetic attraction to women (very funny stuff).  Cassidy seems like a very lovable guy who lives next door, that you would love to have as part of your family, hanging around at Christmas, telling stories by the fireplace about his accidental arrests and some not-so accidental… you just wouldn’t want him married to your daughter (I might have to kill him, and bury him out back under my daisy flowerbed).  Ha!

Overall, it was a great read, which I highly recommend if you love the super-sleuth kind of book, that has you following the mysterious leads, as if you are living the life right along beside him.  You can read more about this book atScanner Publishing, along with reviews and information regarding the author.  I didn’t really get into what the book was about here, because I thought you should just run out, purchase the book and then start fresh… just like I did!  You will be very happy you did.