Investigative reporter Kevin Donovan has done it again. He's written a fantastic book about a story most Canadians have been following in the news.
Much like he did with his 2016 Secret Life: The Jian Ghomeshi Investigation, in his latest title he's taken a story he was reporting on for the Toronto Star and expanded on it in a few hundred pages that are hard to look away from.
The Billionaire Murders: The Mysterious Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman is not just a tale about this couple's death. In fact it would be worth the read even if that event had never occurred.
Without the murder - and its gory details, and insights into the investigation you won't see anywhere else - this book would contain a fascinating look at their lives. Conducting more than 200 interviews and pulling from an unpublished memoir that Barry Sherman wrote, Donovan offers up details of this couple's existence all the way back to their births.
Without the ghastly unsolved crime which is woven throughout, The Billionaire Murders would offer the reader an understanding of the generic drug industry in Canada, and how it has changed over the years. It would give a look inside the business dealings of one of Canada's richest families, as well as detailed accounting of some of their interests and philanthopy.
It would paint a picture of the lives of this wildly interesting billionaire couple, as well as the unlikely friendships and partnerships they made along their journeys that ended sooner than they should have.
You would meet an unlikely character in Frank D'Angelo, founder of Cheetah Power Surge energy drink who was a dear friend of Barry's. D'Angelo is the oddball businessman who managed to get disgraced runner Ben Johnson to come on board as a spokesperson and say "I cheetah all the time" in a TV commercial.
You'd read personal emails between a father and a son, and learn of the dysfunction that extended beyond the immediate family and into the cousin zone.
Unfortunately there's that double murder that is the thread that holds the story together, and which got you interested in reading in the first place. After reading the thing you just might leave it feeling queasy, as I did.
However it's an important read, and while you might not finish it knowing exactly who killed this couple, you'll have a pretty good idea.
