Howard Engel

Recovering in a Toronto hospital from a serious blow to the head, private investigator Benny Cooperman struggles with memory loss and a condition that has rendered him able to write but unable to read, a circumstance that compromises his ability to remember his attacker and the case he was on the brink of solving.

Beloved private eye Benny Cooperman is ready to hang up his gumshoes after an attack leaves him with lingering memory problems. But then an old chum goes missing. Hot on the trail of Jake Grange, a schoolfriend who ran a scuba diving business, Benny heads to Murinam, an exotic place with the feel and look of a former French colony. There, Benny encounters a bon-vivant priest, a pretty marine biologist, and an eccentric Englishman in search of kosher food. Of course any of these charming locals could be responsible for Jake's disappearance. But when dead bodies start to appear under the sunny tropical skies, Benny knows he must be getting somewhere. With its sure-footed plot and trademark wry humour, East of Suez proves to be one of Benny Cooperman's most memorable cases.

"One hot midsummer morning, crime novelist Howard Engel picked up his newspaper from his front step and discovered he could no longer read it. The letters had mysteriously jumbled themselves into something that looked like Cyrillic one moment and Korean the next. While he slept, Engel had experienced a stroke and now suffered from a rare condition called alexia sine agraphia, meaning that while he could still write, he could no longer read"--Jacket flap.

The man from Capetown / Stuart M. Kaminsky -- The case of the Borderland dandelions / Howard Engel -- The siren of Sennen Cove / Peter Tremayne -- The case of the bloodless sock / Anne Perry -- The adventure of the anonymous author / Edward D. Hoch -- The case of the vampire's mark / Bill Crider -- A hansom for Mr. Holmes / Gillian Linscott -- The adventure of the Arabian Knight / Loren D. Estleman -- The adventure of the Cheshire Cheese / Jon L. Breen -- Darkest gold / L.B. Greenwood -- The remarkable worm / Carolyn Wheat -- Sidelights on Sherlock Holmes / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- 100 years of Sherlock Holmes / Lloyd Rose -- And now, a word from Arthur Conan Doyle / Jon L. Lellenberg --

When Rabbi Meltzer and the President of Grantham's synagogue knock on Benny's office door, they aren't looking to sell raffle tickets. Of that much, he's sure. They need his help in tracking down a missing lawyer who has disappeared with the life savings of half of the Jewish community. Benny knows he'll never see a dime out of it, but what can you do? It's summer in the city--and it's going to be a hot one.

Canadian detective Benny Coopermann is hired to keep an eye on Norbert Patten, the absolute despot of a highly suspect religious cult, the Ultimate Church. Benny follows him to Big Crummock Lake where Patten goes to escape whilst the U.S. Supreme Court investigates his finances. An unwise choice as a hide-out, for it's a part of his distant past, and now the past begins to catch up with him. And this yields a complex mystery which keeps the wily Benny guessing.

The very term "crimes of passion" evokes deep-seated, atavistic responses in everyone's heart. These are the crimes that are born in the emotional core of women and men who are pushed to do the unthinkable. There are never - well, hardly ever - any of the crass considerations of financial gain, no taint of reward; only release. These crimes are direct responses to betrayal, to broken hearts and injured pride. Jealousy, envy and the rest of the seven deadly sins enter through this door, and, like as not, end on the scaffold - except in France, however, where le crime passionnel has most often been treated as an irrational response to the sudden betrayal of a loved and trusted partner, but rarely treated in the courts as common murder. Celebrated crime archivist and writer Howard Engel leads us on a journey through the murky passages of bewildering betrayal and rage too passionate for the subtle legal mind. He explores such infamous cases as Maria Manning, Edith Thompson, Ruth Ellis, Lord Broughton, Dr. Crippin and O.J. Simpson. Their love, lovers, loss and lingering malice combine in this emotional volume, sure to thrill any crime fan or historian.

In Lord High Executioner, Howard Engel produces a wonderfully wise and witty social history of the men and women who represent our agents of death, and who have done our dirty work over the centuries.

Benny Cooperman is hot on the trail of some missing paintings by Wallace Lamb.