On this page

This page lists novels that feature the Canadian private investigator Benny Cooperman.

The Suicide Murders

Howard Engel

1980

A Benny Cooperman novel.

"She was cool, attractive - a real society lady - and she was in trouble. Benny Cooperman, a private eye with a hard head and a tender heart, was ready to help her in any way he could. But when her husband commits suicide the day Benny begins his investigation, the detective realizes he's dealing with something beyond a simple 'family affair.' Probing into the curious circumstances surrounding the death, Benny finds himself in the midst of a strange group indeed - one that involves a mysterious psychiatrist, shady eminent citizens, and soon a few more suicides - or murders."

The Ransom Game

Howard Engel

1981

A Benny Cooperman novel.

"Benny Cooperman is slowly going crazy. It's winter in Grantham, Ontario, and he has nothing better to do than watch the frost creeping in under his door. Nothing, that is, until blue-eyed, long-legged Muriel Falkirk enters his office because her boyfriend, the notorious Johnny Rosa, has gone missing. It's been ten years since Johnny pulled off a sensational kidnapping, and he's served his time. But now he's skipped parole - or been murdered - and Muriel wants to know where he is. But a lot of other people do, too, most of them interested in the unrecovered half-million-dollar ransom."

Murder on Location

Howard Engel

1982

A Benny Cooperman novel.

"Hollywood elite have gathered at Niagara Falls to make an epic thriller, Ice Bridge. When Benny wanders onto the set, he isn't looking for a part. He's tracing a woman missing from Granthan, his home and usual beat. Has she been hit with a lust for stardom? Or is her lust something more conventional - and a lot more dangerous?"

Murder Sees the Light

Howard Engel

1984

A Benny Cooperman novel.

"Canadian P.I. Benny Cooperman takes to the woods in this one - Algonquin National Park, where he's staying at primitive Petawawa Lodge and keeping an eye on super-successful evangelist Norbert Patten, head of the Ultimate Church. Patten's hiding out as he waits for a Supreme Court verdict on the validity of his church, hoping to dodge some bitter enemies at the same time. His return to the locale of his youth seems to trigger some macabre happenings. When the body of stoic Indian guide Aeneas DuFond is discovered in a culvert, Benny takes a closer look at some of the lodge's visitors - among others, we have commanding Maggie McCord and her nasty, no-good son George; Aeneas' schoolteacher brother Hector; illicit lovebirds Des and Delia and gorgeous, mysterious Aline Barbour."

A City Called July

Howard Engel

1986

A Benny Cooperman novel.

"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."

A Victim Must Be Found

Howard Engel

1988

A Benny Cooperman novel.

"Benny Cooperman, Grantham's soft-boiled private eye, finds himself mixed up in the art world. More out of water a fish can't get. After all, Benny only heard of Picasso last year, and now he's hot on the trail of some missing paintings by Wallace Lamb - a trail that leads him to some of Grantham's illustrious elite who buy, trade, and sometimes steal pictures. As this private eye soon learns, art can lead to murder - Benny's own client is found dead and the shoes peeking under the curtains at the scene of the crime belong to Benny!"

Dead and Buried

Howard Engel

1990

A Benny Cooperman novel.

"In his latest case, Benny Cooperman is sure that toxic waste isn't something you should spend too much time thinking about - it just isn't good for your mental health. But when Jack Dowden's widow appeals to Benny to investigate the death of her truck-driving husband, our favorite gumshoe finds himself up to his egg salad-stained lapels in the deadly filth of Kinross Disposals. As he unearths clues - and PCBs - the body count rises, and Benny Cooperman does everything he can not to end up dead and buried."

the Whole Megillah

Howard Engel

1991

A privately published, limited edition Benny Cooperman novella.

"Benny Cooperman was expecting his time in Toronto to be spent watering plants, feeding gerbils and sampling the local sandwich shops, but a house-sitting gig for his brother soon leads to another case for the endearing private detective. A dealer in rare books asks Benny to investigate the theft of a rare Jewish manuscript from his home. But before Benny can make any sense of the obsessive world of antique book collectors, his client turns up dead and the robbery isn’t at all what it seems."

There Was an Old Woman

Howard Engel

1993

A Benny Cooperman novel.

"Benny Cooperman, the working-stiff private eye, is back, this time trying to sort out the kerfuffle surrounding the plumbing, a dead old woman, and a crooked politician. It all starts with a noisy toilet. Benny's janitor, Kogan, is too preoccupied with the death of his girlfriend, Lizzy Oldridge, an elderly woman who appears to have starved to death. Lizzy may have died hungry, but she had plenty of money, and somehow former alderman and mayoralty candidate Thurleigh Ramsden, an unsavoury character if there ever was one, has gained control of it. As Benny gets enmeshed in the case the body count increases alarmingly - but what’s happened with the plumbing?"

Getting Away With Murder

Howard Engel

1995

A Benny Cooperman novel.

"In his most baffling case yet, Benny Cooperman is snug in his bed in quiet Grantham, a town near Niagara Falls, when three unsavory thugs drag him out of bed and present him like a trophy to notorious crime boss, Abram Wise, 'the biggest crook in North America who's never been to prison.' Someone has made two attempts on the gangster's life and he wants Benny to investigate. An expert in offers you can't refuse, Wise convinces a reluctant Benny to take the case."

My Brothers Keeper

Howard Engel & Eric Wright

2002

A Benny Cooperman and Charlie Salter novel.

"This short, engaging mystery brings together two of the great crime solvers of Canadian literature: Howard Engel's somewhat bumbling private investigator, Benny Cooperman, and Eric Wright's smooth, retiring police detective, Charlie Salter. When Dr. John Davidson Horner, the chief of staff at Toronto's Rose of Sharon Hospital, disappears, Benny Cooperman is brought into the case by his brother Sam, a surgeon at the hospital, who feels he might be implicated in a yet-to-be-published memoir Horner has written that exposes the sins of a number of staff."

The Cooperman Variations

Howard Engel

2001

A Benny Cooperman novel.

"Vanessa Moss, a former high school beauty who has grown up to become Head of Entertainment at a television network, asks Benny to protect her. A friend was murdered while at her house, and Vanessa fears she was the target. So Benny travels from Grantham to the National Television Corporation headquarters in Toronto. There, Benny poses unconvincingly as Vanessa's executive assistant amidst a tangle of competing executives, back-biting lawyers, arrogant producers, and hopeful hangers-on surrounding Vanessa, ready to ingratiate or unseat. But do they want to kill her? When another NTC employee is murdered, Benny wonders whether Dermot Keogh, the world famous cellist who died recently in a diving accident, may not also be a victim of foul play. As Benny tries to protect his client, gives the local cops a hand and avoids making enemies of his new colleagues, he quickly discovers that taking care of Vanessa Moss is a seductive but risky business."

Memory Book

Howard Engel

2005

A Benny Cooperman novel.

"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."

East of Suez

Howard Engel

2008

A Benny Cooperman novel.

"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."

Over The River

Howard Engel

2016

A Benny Cooperman novel.

"Struggling with the aftermath of a serious concussion as well as what he describes as a “leaky memory”, Benny Cooperman is back after eight years. He’s hired on a shoestring budget to find background information on a murder victim, Leonard Holbrook, a petty crook and blackmailer, who certainly got what was coming to him — but which of the many possible suspects acted on their very good reasons? Over the river happens to be across the border, where the police of Grantham have no jurisdiction, but where Benny can interview a cast of characters who wouldn’t be out of place in the mysteries of Chandler and Hammett."