Some good suspense in hockey, justice arenas

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A murder mystery set in a hockey milieu is a novel idea. An ex-journeyman player turned NHL scout as the intrepid sleuth is more original still.

Traditionally, fictional amateur investigators have been everything from elderly spinsters to clergymen.

So having a pro hockey scout play detective -- especially in Canada -- isn't beyond the pale. And G.B. Joyce's self-deprecating career fourth-liner is a nice addition to the ranks of amateur sleuths.

G.B. Joyce is better known as Gare Joyce. He is a well-known Toronto sportswriter writer and broadcaster and the author of six sports non-fiction books, most recently The Devil and Bobby Hull (2011).

The initial puzzle in The Code is: Who's the perpetrator of a double homicide.

But though it starts out as a whodunit, when the murderer is identified roughly half way in, it morphs into a whydunit. And when why is disclosed, the story morphs once again, this time into a is-he-goona-try-it-again? puzzler.

Brad Shade is a couple of years into a pro scouting gig after an undistinguished 14-year pro hockey career when the coach and team doctor of a Peterborough junior team he's bird-dogging are found bludgeoned to death in the club's parking lot following an old timers' charity game.

Shade had suited up for the game for as a last-minute invite. His day job already had him in town anyway, checking out local 17-year-old junior hockey phenom, Billy Mays Jr., when his life suddenly intersects with the murder of the kid's grizzled old coach and the team's longtime doc.

The cops are at a loss as to suspects, and baffled as to motive.

For an amateur-detective story to work, the main character, the non-cop investigator, has to be well-drawn and engaging. Shade is both, and it's his clever rapscallion personality that propels the story.

While Shade is the story's principal character right off the hop, it takes a lot longer to give him a plausible reason to play amateur gumshoe.

His involvement is peripheral to the murders until, inexplicably, his longtime love interest becomes the killer's next target.

When his consulting-psychologist girlfriend Sandy's office is tossed, Shade quickly deduces a link to the murders, but not its specifics.

Later, she's the object of an abortive attack by a knife-wielding assailant, and the identity of the murderer revealed -- to Shade. But for reasons having to do with his tenuous hold on his job, the pending NHL draft and therapist-patient confidentiality, he can't tip the police.

Because the murders and Shade's involvement are a bit of a long time coming, the story's initial pace is slow, and the story has a far from gripping start.

But the slow prep is worth the wait.

Joyce is teeing up his portraits of both Shade's character and junior-hockey culture -- and its intersection with the big business of agent-structured contracts and marketing of teenaged marquee players -- for what's to follow.

And justice is ultimately done -- both in the criminal justice system and at the NHL draft table. But there's some nice suspense, in both arenas, before Joyce gets us there.

Douglas J. Johnston is a Winnipeg lawyer and writer.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 21, 2012 J9