Benny Cooperman's favourite lunch counter and diner have closed down and the fittings have been sold to Americans. The nation mourns 
the accidental death of its greatest artist, cellist Dermot Keogh. It's April and there's already a heat wave. Things are just not the
 way they used to be.
Alas, not just the plots and settings have changed in Howard Engel's 10th Benny Cooperman mystery. While Canada's favourite fictional 
detective is still his smart-alecky but unsophisticated self ("Dim Sum may be unknown in Grantham, Mr. Cooperman, but we in Toronto 
have had it for nearly forty years"), his talents seem washed out, if not washed up, in this nasty little mystery set in the high-tech,
 high-pressure world of a Toronto TV station far up the road from his native Grantham. All the stock figures are there: the former high
 school love goddess who calls at the detective's office wondering if she's in the path of a killer, the small-town lawyer, the slobbish
 cops, the heavies in dark glasses. What's missing are the gritty small-town ambience and naked class antagonisms that drive best 
hard-boiled detective fiction, including Engel's early novels. Burdened with the bland homogeneity of the contemporary city and with
 convoluted literary references, the tale becomes progressively less gripping. In fact Cooperman hasn't been himself since 1990's 
Dead and Buried, when his creator first fell for the suits and the happy ending. The warning of his first sentence--"I should have
 seen the writing on the wall"--should have been a message to readers as well. --Robyn Gillam
      *** ✔️WARNING✔️ ***
*** ✔️Ebook in epub format✔️ ***