Customer Reviews

Memory Book

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4 star:		(2)
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if you like Howard Engel and Benny, this is a must read!

I had no idea what had happened medically to Howard - so don't read the afterword by Oliver Sacks til AFTER. Let's just say that the fact that Howard even managed to write this book is truly remarkable and shows that he is indeed a master of the genre. The fact that it is a great book where I was totally hooked after 10 pages and the manner in which the plot unfolds - just read it - it's a remarkable achievement and I thank Howard for his courage.

Just watch out for those nap times...

jb

When I heard about Howard Engel's stroke, I assumed that I would never see Benny Cooperman again. However, this author has done the seemingly impossible and given us another great story.
Memory Book is different from the other Cooperman novels because Benny has been afflicted with alexia, like Engel. Thus, quite a bit of time is spent with Benny in the hospital, learning how to cope with his altered abilities. However, Benny is just as nosy, persistent and peculiarly charming as ever. He enlists his visitors onto his sleuthing team. The mystery unravels alongside Benny's therapy.
We get to see some old, favourite characters and - of course - some new ones. Engel is a master at painting characters with details that leave you feeling you've met them somewhere before. Former Cooperman fan or not, I recommend you spend some time with Benny and his friends as they help to unravel the mystery and have some laughs along the way.

Co-narrated by Ron Halder and Donna White, "Memory Books" by Canadian mystery writer Howard Engel is the story of small-town private investigatory Benny Cooperman who, after being left for dead from a blow to the head by an unknown assailant, wakes up in a hospital and in the middle of a mystery. All Benny can remember is that he was close to figuring out a mystery but can't remember anything else - including the name of his girlfriend, Anna Abraham. To complicate things further, Benny is suffering from a brain injury that allows him to still write, but not be able to read! But with the help of Anna and the use of a small notepad dubbed the 'memory book', Benny engages in some dedicated bedside sleuthing. Author Howard Engel (who in real life suffers a similar brain injury to that of his lead character) has created a terrific 'who dunnit' style mystery with a medical theme that will engage the reader's total and rapt attention from beginning to end. Expertly abridged and originally broadcast on CBC Radio, "Memory Books" is especially recommended to mystery buffs and, with a total running time of 3 hours and 30 minutes, is a welcome addition to any community library audiobook CD collection..

Benny Goodman, private investigator, feels the train leaving the tracks. He sees objects flying everywhere, then a suitcase coming toward him. The next thing he sees are the white walls of his hospital room. But he didn't get hit on the head in a train wreck; he got hit on the head in an alley in Toronto and left for dead alongside another poor soul who wasn't as lucky. But all he remembers is the train wreck that never happened. And the blow to the head in the alley he can't remember has left him with a rare condition, "alexia sine agraphia," where he can write but cannot read--written words are just a jumble of marks without meaning. He knows he must have been working a case, but what case? Who was his client? What was he doing in the alley? Who tried to kill him and did they still want him dead? If he can't remember, how can he find out?

Howard Engel's latest entry in the Benny Goodman series is unique in crime fiction as Engel wrote this work after a stroke that left him in the same condition as his character--no small achievement for a writer who could no longer read the pages he had just written. So "Memory Book" becomes somewhat of a reversed locked-room mystery where, instead of the murder occurring in a locked room, the detective is locked in a hospital without normal access to the crime scene and witnesses. Benny must use what few clues he has about what has happened to infer the answers to the mystery

"Memory Book" is a very enjoyable cozy detective story. Benny exhibits a good sense of humor about his condition, and his observations about hospital life and patients can make you chuckle out loud. Even though the scene where Benny unveils the murderer taunt's your willingness to suspend disbelief, you can forgive him because he's just so darn likeable. I'm looking forward to meeting the former Benny Goodman in his earlier cases, before he got the dent in his brain.

Prior to reading this book, I had never heard of Howard Engel. Therefore, I knew nothing about him as an author prior to this book or his condition during the writing of this one. The afterword explains it all but I won't give that away here. I went into the story blind, no preconceptions, and I'm glad I did.

This is more like an old-fashioned, Sherlock Holmes-type mystery, rather than the typical intricate, fast-paced mystery of today. Benny Cooperman, the detective and narrator, has a brain injury and does most of his detecting from the brain injury ward in the hospital. While some might consider this story slow due in part to the lack of movement, I found it entertaining and enjoyed every word.

Oliver Sachs was right. This mystery was approached from a whole new point of view. A detective with a memory problem from a head injury tries to solve the mystery of who and why he was nearly killed. The hospital is the main setting and we see the patient struggle to put things together with an impaired memory. I truly admired the fact that the author wrote this book with an impairment of his own.