Edgar Award winning mystery writer and true crime author Jeff Reynolds has a Walla Walla, Washington private eye license as a gimmick. He's never cracked a case more complex than a 12-pack of Pepsi. When a paranoid recluse offers Jeff $1,000 to find out if it's safe to come out of the house, Reynolds finds himself lured into a complex web of conspiracy and murder where delusions are deadly, life after death can be hell, and all roads lead to the McFeely Tavern.

"I need to confess that for almost a decade I mourned the loss of Georges Simenon so intensely that I never read another mystery. I never expected to savor another detail, marvel at the accuracy of another metaphor, or care about another protagonist the way I did for Inspector Maigret. Burl Barer has succeeded in enticing me back to fictional crime with the debut of Jeff Reynolds, P.I., in HEADLOCK.

Jeff Reynolds, the novel's protagonist, barely makes a living as a mid-list mystery writer. To augment his income, he has a Walla Walla, Washington private investigator's license. Reynolds takes small cases for small cash. His main interests lie in finding justice for the oppressed, retribution for the criminals, and a plot for his next novel.

Despite his acknowledged but suppressed gift of extrasensory perception, Reynolds is not another quirky yet unbelievable hero. His intuition enhances his intelligence; it does not replace it. He never allows the reader to forget that he is more than capable of error. When Columbo played the role of a bumbling, less-than-bright police detective, we knew he was acting. When Jeff Reynolds bumbles, he does it seriously.

In the tradition of himself, Burl Barer gives his audience the usual romping read of little history lessons and big belly laughs. Readers familiar with the witty asides of the writer, as well as the humorous situations he devises for his characters, will love the humor in HEADLOCK. His fictional characters soar in the sublimity of their truth and nonsense.

Jeff Reynold's truth, however, is evasive. The "private eye" narrates his story in the first person, present tense, giving us the impression that he is confiding in us, yet he hides as much as, or more than, he reveals. We are "outside" while the characters are "inside". Reynolds allows us into his mind, an honor denied his co-characters, yet he remains essentially isolated. His "close friends" are only a phone call away--and only a phone call. He says he listens to anything from anybody, but is his listening an exercise in detached observation rather than real communication? He carries private eye identification to legitimize his forays into crime, but he says he is not a real private eye; he is a mystery writer. If he is not a real private eye, is HEADLOCK a real private eye mystery novel? Maybe, maybe not. I think Barer is up to something.

At one point, fellow mystery author G. M. Ford teases Reynolds about "hiding out." It is also Ford who directs Reynolds to an important piece of the plot's intricate puzzle. Barer, using Ford as the touchstone of authenticity, bestows upon him the honor of ultimate expositor. It is G. M. Ford, a real author of highly praised private eye novels, appearing "as himself" in a work of fiction, who provides the primary clue that HEADLOCK is a novel "beyond the genre"--a daring, original piece of contemporary fiction "hiding out" as a private eye mystery.

Enigmatic, captivating, amusing, and, in the final analysis, sweetly sad, HEADLOCK is a novel that inspires reflection. It's also a novel you'll read more than once and enjoy for different reasons each time. Despite the unusual amount of typos and misspellings -- a technical preparation gaffe -- Burl Barer's HEADLOCK is a one-hundred percent dazzling debut of what could be the best new series in mystery fiction."
-- Gerry Graber

"Take one Walla Walla mystery writer/peeper, add a paranoid client, stir in a nympho novel groupie and photojournalist wannabe, and a bunch of shady characters, and you get HEADLOCK, the new novel from Edgar Award Winner Burl Barer. Jeff Reynolds is the private eye, in this first person, present tense medium-hardboiled mystery which sounds a lot like what you'd get if you locked Paul Auster in a closet with Mickey Spillane. Reynolds writes mysteries and solves them, often incorporating his cases into his books. When Richard Tibbit, a frightened recluse obsessed with exploding heads, confronts Reynolds in a bar and hires him to find out who killed his father, it sets into motion a series of events that will follow Reynolds to the Left Coast Crime writers' conference and beyond. There are confrontations with government spooks, the DEA, professional wrestlers, and many, many real-life writers, such as Tony Fenelly, G.M. Ford, and Meg Chittenden.

Barer occasionally takes his tongue from his cheek long enough to toss in hip cultural references and sneaky asides. This book is full of crisp, biting one-liners, the way any good hardboiled should be. The climax is just the kind of knuckles-and-know-how bullet fest you would expect, but with a whimsical twist.

This ain't your father's hardboiled mystery. There's a lot of burned-out hippie in Burl Barer's protagonist, and the supporting characters never lose the ability to hold the reader's interest. Give it four and a half stars, and that's purely subjective, since I deducted a personal half-star because I normally don't like present tense books. You might well give it the whole five."
-- Richard Helms, author of JOKER POKER