The Body in the Record Room: A Mystery

I enjoyed the kindle edition of this book. It was a fast read with some funny moments with Harry, Bullet, and of course, Roy. I felt the story was full of compassion and honesty and it kept me entertained as Roy and I tried to make heads or tails of who did what to whom and why there was a body in the records room. This book also offered some insight to life and times inside a mental institution back in the 1950's. I developed a deep appreciation for the 'Little man' and looked forward to his appearances throughout the story. I felt the Author portrayed each character and situation as realistic and heartfelt. The overall story was well written and I'm glad I discovered this book.

I really liked this book. I love really gritty detective stories by writers like Michael Connelly, John Sandford and John Shannon, so I was really surprised how much I liked The Body in the Record Room. Not gritty, not even a mystery really, yet there was something about the story that captured my interest and led to some self-examination. In this book the mystery is secondary to the characters, who live in a 1950s institution for the mentally ill. The story is told compassionately from the inmates' points of view, their actions played against a hostile outside world peopled by the so-called sane. As in the film The King of Hearts, one wonders who actually belongs in the asylum. The main character claims he is cowboy star Roy Rogers, and whether he actually believes it or not is unimportant. What is important is the reason he chooses Roy as his persona--Roy exemplifies upright moral character, kindness and a strong sense of justice--attributes not so easily found, especially in a time when mental illness and retardation and depression were lumped together and treated with suspicion and ignorance. Good book, Mr. Barone, and thanks for something different. Even if this kind of book is not your typical fare, try it. I think you will turn the last page with a sigh and a sense of reassuring introspection.

This book was a real wake-up call after the more mundate mysteries I've been ploughing through. It is reminiscent of The Curious Incident of the Dog in The Night Time in that the protagonist does not have the same mentation as the reader. In this book, the narrator is a man confined to a state mental institution because he has delusional episodes. One night, he finds the body of a man. He and a friend hide the body, but then try to find out how the man died; in doing so, they uncover the secrets of many townspeople and inmates, including another murder many years ago. The very short chapter structure works well. The prose is good and the characters are very well written -- they may be crazy but they aren't stupid. The author grew up on the grounds of a Missouri state mental hospital. Perhaps the book resonated more for me since I grew up in the town where one of Iowa's mental institutions is located, as did my mother and her father... I have my mother's diary, describing living on the hospital grounds while her mother was principal at the school there. She talked about the "farm hands" that watched over her and her friends as they played on the grounds, mostly men that she later learned were convicted murderers. Definitely a book that is worth reading!

I started this book last week, read a little each day and when the weekend came...just had to read to the finish. (always a sign of a good book) I enjoyed the adventures of Roy, Harry and Bullet...looking forward to more of their stories.