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Benny Cooperman, 10A
My Brother's Keeper
This novella brings together two great Canadian crime writers and their crime solvers: Howard Engel and his somewhat bumbling Grantham private investigator, Benny Cooperman, and Eric Wright with his smooth, retiring Toronto 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 in by his brother Sam, a surgeon at the hospital. Sam worries that he might be implicated in a yet-to-be-published memoir Horner has written that exposes the sins of a number of the staff. Horner is considered a bit of an odd duck: old-fashioned, highly moral but slightly racist, single, and living alone with his spinster sister. It's very unlikely that he has run off to the Bahamas with a young nurse! He should be easy to find for either Salter or Cooperman, but he isn't - dead or alive!
Librarian's note #1: characters, settings, etc. have been completed for the Benny Cooperman series of 12 novels and 2 novellas: #1. The Suicide Murders (1980), #2. The Ransom Game (1981), #3. Murder On Location (1982), #4. Murder Sees The Light (1984), #5. A City Called July (1986), #6. A Victim Must Be Found (1988), #7. Dead And Buried (1990), #7A. The Whole Megillah (1991) (a novella), #8. There Was An Old Woman (1993), #9. Getting Away With Murder (1995), #10. The Cooperman Variations (2001), #10A. My Brother's Keeper (2001) with co-author Eric Wright (a novella), #11. Memory Book (2005), and #12, East Of Suez (2008). A thirteenth, Over the River, was scheduled for 2018 but never came out.
Librarian's note #2: all the characters, settings, description updates, etc. have been done for the Charlie Salter 11 volume + one novella series: 1. The Night the Gods Smiled, 1983; 2. Smoke Detector, 1984; 3. Death in the Old Country, 1985; 4. A Single Death, 1986; 5. A Body Surrounded by Water, 1987; 6. A Question of Murder, 1988; 7. A Sensitive Case, 1990; 8. Final Cut, 1991; 9. A Fine Italian Hand, 1992; 10. Death by Degrees, 1993; 11. The Last Hand, 2001; and 11.A. My Brother's Keeper, a novella with Howard Engel featuring both Salter and Benny Cooperman, 2001.
When Dr. John Davidson Horner, the chief of staff at Toronto's Rose of Sharon Hospital, disappears, Benny Cooperman is brought in by his brother Sam, a surgeon at the hospital. Sam worries that he might be implicated in a yet-to-be-published memoir Horner has written that exposes the sins of a number of the staff. Horner is considered a bit of an odd duck: old-fashioned, highly moral but slightly racist, single, and living alone with his spinster sister. It's very unlikely that he has run off to the Bahamas with a young nurse! He should be easy to find for either Salter or Cooperman, but he isn't - dead or alive!
Librarian's note #1: characters, settings, etc. have been completed for the Benny Cooperman series of 12 novels and 2 novellas: #1. The Suicide Murders (1980), #2. The Ransom Game (1981), #3. Murder On Location (1982), #4. Murder Sees The Light (1984), #5. A City Called July (1986), #6. A Victim Must Be Found (1988), #7. Dead And Buried (1990), #7A. The Whole Megillah (1991) (a novella), #8. There Was An Old Woman (1993), #9. Getting Away With Murder (1995), #10. The Cooperman Variations (2001), #10A. My Brother's Keeper (2001) with co-author Eric Wright (a novella), #11. Memory Book (2005), and #12, East Of Suez (2008). A thirteenth, Over the River, was scheduled for 2018 but never came out.
Librarian's note #2: all the characters, settings, description updates, etc. have been done for the Charlie Salter 11 volume + one novella series: 1. The Night the Gods Smiled, 1983; 2. Smoke Detector, 1984; 3. Death in the Old Country, 1985; 4. A Single Death, 1986; 5. A Body Surrounded by Water, 1987; 6. A Question of Murder, 1988; 7. A Sensitive Case, 1990; 8. Final Cut, 1991; 9. A Fine Italian Hand, 1992; 10. Death by Degrees, 1993; 11. The Last Hand, 2001; and 11.A. My Brother's Keeper, a novella with Howard Engel featuring both Salter and Benny Cooperman, 2001.
125 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 22, 2016
This book was okay. It's shows you mostly about the relationship of brothers and family. How something so big can affect the entire family. There was a lot of mixed emotion that went on with the family. It also talks about the relationship between the brothers and the mother. They all kept their secrets from each other and it shows how the family handled it and what happened.
October 4, 2015
A little different...... but ok
December 4, 2025
4 Stars. A novella of 125 pages starring two Canadian sleuths. One is Charlie Salter, the middle-aged Toronto police detective who usually handles and solves their high-profile cases, and the other is Benny Cooperman, the dumpy, private detective from Grantham, Ontario (in reality St. Catharines). He seems to have bumbled his way to a track record as good as Salter's. One interesting aspect is that authors Wright and Engel tell the story of the disappearance of Dr. Davidson Horner on different tracks. Horner is chief of staff at Toronto's Rose of Sharon Hospital. Benny and Charlie don't work the case together. The two sleuths don't meet until 4/5ths of the way through. And Charlie's efforts for the official police are told in the third person, whereas Bennie's work for his brother Sam Cooperman who is head surgeon at the hospital, is told in the first person. When they do meet it's in the hospital cafeteria where they compare notes and, what else, solve the case. I enjoyed the novel way the authors found to collaborate. Both leads have trouble finding Horner but here's a clue: check-out Edgar Alan Poe's The Purloined Letter with C. Auguste Dupin. (Jun2024/De2025)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews