in Chatsworth, Grey Highlands, Southgate, West Grey
May 28, 2025
BY JOHN BUTLER — Retired Owen Sound criminal lawyer Brian Barrie knows about crime and justice. He also knows how to tell a story — in a speech or through written words. These aptitudes will come together when Brian talks about his latest book, Four Bullets, Four Witnesses, Four Liars at 2:00 pm on Wednesday, June 11 at the Kimberley Community Hall, 235309 Grey Road 13, in the village of Kimberley (doors open at 1:30). This event is free and open to the public (no registration required.) It’s the latest in a popular lecture series sponsored as a public service by the Grey Highlands PROBUS Club in cooperation with the Kimberley Community Association and the Grey Highlands Public Library.
Four Bullets, Four Witnesses, Four Liars is a true-life murder mystery, based on Brian’s second murder trial as a lawyer. The book has won praise from jurists and the readers of true crime novels alike. Said Justice Terry O'Connor in reviewing the book:
“Brian Barrie has written this riveting memoir chronicling one of his first murder cases. It reads like a skillfully crafted whodunnit. Yet, it’s all true. He takes us through the chaotic lives of a cadre of misfits, until one of them is brutally murdered. The trial is a battle royal between a truculent Crown Attorney and Barrie. He quotes liberally from the actual trial transcripts to build suspense to a dramatic but satisfying conclusion. So many twists and turns. You won’t be able to put it down.”
But the book isn’t his first foray into book-writing — between 2007 and 2019, he published four books for children and youth. It was only when he retired in December 2018 that he had the time to write a novel. And this book is far from his last. “I cannot stop writing and will not,” says Brian. He and his illustrator are working on a book of silly rhymes, likely titled The Diet Book of Snickers, and he is writing a second true crime novel based on a 1991 Wiarton murder case. He’s also a songwriter, collaborating with his son Morgan Barrie, a songwriter and producer. Father and son have released an album together available on Spotify entitled ‘Til The Motor Quits, released under the name of Sweet M. A second album is in the works.
Brian’s own life story is as interesting as anything he writes about. Raised in Kitchener and Galt (now part of Cambridge), Brian says “It was preordained that I would join the military — an expectation that was fostered from birth. I could march before I could crawl.” His father was a Second Lieutenant who led a platoon of Galt soldiers onto Juno Beach on D-Day. Brian’s grandfather commanded a platoon during the First World War, and after the war commanded the Highland Fusiliers of Canada. Brian entered Canada’s Royal Military College in Kingston, but a football injury sidelined his soldierly ambitions. He re-mustered to the Medical Corps as an Administrative Officer at RMC, discovered the Age of Aquarius in Kingston (despite the short hair required by his military college), wrote poetry and music, and played in coffee houses. He transferred from Engineering to Honours English at the college, and met the love of his life and later married her. He also learned that he didn’t like being told what to do or following dumb orders. After graduation he served four years as payback for his RMC education, posted to Canadian Forces Base Gagetown in New Brunswick as a medical administrative officer with the First Canadian Field Ambulance (the equivalent of a MASH unit.) Says Brian, “The craziness of a MASH unit paled in comparison to my experiences in Gagetown — all cementing my resolve to get out.” And he left the military.
He completed a University of New Brunswick Masters in English degree program in 1972 and was accepted into a Ph.D. program, but realized that university teaching had its own hierarchy and expectations, including “publish or perish”. So he said “no” to an academic career: he wasn’t going to be owned.
Yet he wanted to make changes to the world. He developed a fierce concern about injustice, and he liked to debate. A lawyer friend suggested a law career, and with his wife’s support Brian entered Queen’s Law in 1973, graduating in 1976. Working with Queen’s Legal Aid in the summers, he found a love of the courtroom. He became a fierce litigator — his natural reticence disappeared when championing just causes for the downtrodden. He decided to be a trial lawyer.
Brian chose to practice law in Owen Sound. Childhood summer memories were tied to Sauble Beach, and he knew his spirit was connected to water, sand and stone — the Bruce Peninsula, where he lives to this day near the village of Red Bay. “Everyone should choose to reside in a geographical place that fosters comfort and dreams, a place to call home. Owen Sound was the County town for Grey County — I could litigate close to home,” says Brian, who carried out his trial practice in Owen Sound for 40 years. He has been passionate about justice for clients who entrusted him with their personal freedom and financial survival. He loved the courtroom and its combative environment but always tried to secure an early, fair and cheap legal resolution before ending up there. Motivated not by money but by causes, he happily took the gloves off and earned a reputation of punching above his weight in cases that involved a serious crime, important legal issues, an interesting human story, or cases that were just weird. He learned that passion for justice was not just an emotional reaction to unfairness but an intellectual one as well, guided by strategy and tactics. He acted for the Deputy Chief of Defence for the Somalia Inquiry, represented three families who lost loved ones in the Walkerton water crisis and acted in 13 murder trials. In Brian’s last trial, Superior Court Justice Conlan made note of Brian’s legal contributions, referring to him in his written judgment as “one of the best barristers to ever practice law in the Counties of Grey and Bruce.”
Despite working 60 hours a week, Brian found time to put his three children to bed each night, making up stories for them. In 2006, his adult children asked him to write down these stories, which were published as four books with the help of illustrator Bonita Johnson de Matteis. All these children’s books are still in demand locally.
Upon retirement in December of 2018, he had the time to write Four Bullets, Four Witnesses, Four Liars — a whodunnit that took the better part of three years to write, first as a fictional account, then as a final non-fiction version that required painstaking research into court records (copies of the book will be available at his presentation in Kimberley.) The result skewers both the Crown Attorney and the presiding Justice and deals with arrogance, bias and concepts of judicial fairness that Brian says must be afforded to rich and poor alike.
Brian’s meticulous research and story-telling skills paid off. Famed lawyer Brian Greenspan wrote its foreword. Retired judges endorsed it and championed its message. Irwin Law published it, and last year the rights to the book were bought by the University of Toronto Press, which expanded its distribution. It’s now carried by Indigo/Chapters/Coles and UTP, and UTP has released it as an audio book available through Audible. The book is now in its fifth reprint.
The completion of the book led Brian to another activity he has come to enjoy greatly — talking in public settings about his book, about the profound issues that lie behind it, and about the other wells of creativity within him that just won’t stop flowing. He’s much in demand as a speaker.
Does Brian have advice for aspiring writers? He says they should write just for the love of writing — the biggest challenge is the discipline needed to stay with it and the need to budget time daily for writing. And writers should write about something they know about personally — we all have unique interests and unique stories, says Brian — and he asserts that no one’s experiences are better than anyone else’s, so the measure of the importance of what a writer has to say should not be how quickly a publisher jumps to publish her book. He urges writers to know their audience, whether family, friends or colleagues. “Fame and fortune are false gods,” says Brian. “Write for the joy of it and the desire to share a story. Know that rejection and the necessity of rewrites present gifts of story improvement.”
Whether you’re interested in a gripping story, a true story, or a story that melds humanity and justice, The Kimberley Community Hall is the place to be at 2:00 pm on Wednesday June 11. You’ll be in the presence of an engaging and genial story-teller.
At South Grey News, we endeavour to bring you truthful and factual, up-to-date local community news in a quick and easy-to-digest format that’s free of political bias. We believe this service is more important today than ever before, as social media has given rise to misinformation, largely unchecked by big corporations who put profits ahead of their responsibilities.
South Grey News does not have the resources of a big corporation. We are a small, locally owned-and-operated organization. Research, analysis and physical attendance at public meetings and community events requires considerable effort. But contributions from readers and advertisers, however big or small, go a long way to helping us deliver positive, open and honest journalism for this community.
Please consider supporting South Grey News with a donation in lieu of a subscription fee and let us know that our efforts are appreciated. Thank you.
.jpg?updated=1625080483)
