Howard Engel. The Suicide Murders (1980) Engel’s Benny Cooperman series is a pleasure and a treasure. Cooperman is a private investigator working in a time when a PI’s work is less and less valuable. The police do a better job of finding missing persons or fingering violent perps. No-fault divorce has made the PI’s prime source of income practically pointless. But Cooperman still has a few clients, and for reasons of literary necessity, they are mixed up with murders. Engel needed to make some money, and lucky for aficionados of crime fiction, he discovered a talent for laid-back low-key PI stories. This novel was the first in a series of ten.
This one’s a re-read for me. It begins with a woman wanting to discover her husband’s supposed mistress. But he commits suicide that very afternoon. Or so it seems. As the title hints, the suicide is a screen for murder.
Cooperman’s inconvenient questions lead him deep into the city’s corrupt links between politicians and various rich men with at best semi-legal projects for making money. There are additional deaths, an uneasy relationship with the cops, an attempt on Benny’s life, and a hint of romance. Engel also builds a nicely done, not-quite-cliche back-story for Cooperman, which adds to the charm of the book. It got me hooked, and I read as many Coopermans as I could find. A couple of them were made into movies, look for them on YouTube.. Recommended. ***½
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