Dead and Buried

Chris Redmond is Director of Internal Communications at the University
of Waterloo.

In his seventh published exploit, is Benny Cooperman getting soft? He
eats his beloved egg salad sandwiches only once in the course of Dead
and Buried. To replace that white-bread nourishment, however, he’s
tentatively acquired a white-bread girlfriend, Anna, who is independent
and talented and maybe a little too good for the bad town Engel wants
the reader to see in “Grantham” (i.e., St. Catharines).

Anyone who cares about Canadian detective stories knows Engel by now as
the accepted king of the genre. Like the previous books in which
Cooperman appears, Dead and Buried offers a mystery that’s a mess of
family hatreds, business sleaze, and rundown small-town dirt. The plot
works, but those who can’t follow plots won’t miss much, as the
evildoing unfolds without many thrills. The bad guys done it, as usual.
Details this time: chemical waste disposal, Old Fort George, death in
the steambath, investigative journalism, Cooperman learns bookkeeping,
driver crushed by truck. The one old-fashioned clue (traces of rare
plant found on clothing) is treated ironically, though it’s vital to
the case.

Cooperman fans will like Engel’s latest. Enthusiasts of tidy
locked-room mysteries and least-likely-suspect stuff should continue to
look elsewhere.