Overview
Left for dead in a dumpster, private investigator Benny Cooperman becomes his own client in his most puzzling mystery yet. Benny is recovering in a Toronto hospital from a serious blow to the head. He has a condition called alexia sine agraphia; in layman's terms, it means he can still write but cannot read. And his memory has been affected too: Although he can quote lines from his high-school production of Twelfth Night, he finds himself brushing his teeth with his shaving cream. Even his girlfriend's name—Anna Abraham—continues to elude him. When Benny learns that he was found unconscious beside a dead woman, he figures he must have been close to solving a case. With Anna working as field agent and two Toronto cops reluctantly sharing their discoveries, Benny pieces together the events that led to a murder—and his own injuries.Synopsis
Left for dead in a dumpster, private investigator Benny Cooperman becomes his own client in his most puzzling mystery yet.
Benny is recovering in a Toronto hospital from a serious blow to the head. He has a condition called alexia sine agraphia; in layman's terms, it means he can still write but cannot read. And his memory has been affected too: Although he can quote lines from his high-school production of Twelfth Night, he finds himself brushing his teeth with his shaving cream. Even his girlfriend's name-Anna Abraham-continues to elude him.
When Benny learns that he was found unconscious beside a dead woman, he figures he must have been close to solving a case. With Anna working as field agent and two Toronto cops reluctantly sharing their discoveries, Benny pieces together the events that led to a murder-and his own injuries.
Publishers Weekly
Engel's 11th Benny Cooperman mystery (The Cooperman Variations, etc.) is notable because it's the Canadian author's first novel since 2000, when a small stroke left him with a rare disorder that rendered him able to write but unable to read. His PI hero suffers from the same ailment as he wakes from a recurring dream about a train wreck to find himself in a Toronto hospital. It turns out Benny has been in a coma for eight weeks after being found in a Dumpster near the university with a near-fatal blow to the head-next to the body of a young female professor, dead of a similar head trauma. Using a small notebook in which he jots things as they occur to him-a memory book-Benny and girlfriend Anna Abraham reconstruct his most recent case. An anonymously sent basket of roses triggers the name Rose or Rosie, while the sudden disappearance of a student and a prominent faculty member suggests conspiracy. Engel is better on the mechanics of Benny's disorder, and on his laborious recovery process, than he is at creating sleuthful suspense. Benny's vividness, and that of a variety of incidental characters, carries the book. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.