Howard Engel is the winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for crime fiction and creator of the acclaimed Benny Cooperman mystery series as well as Murder in Montparnasse, a departure from the series. He is a founding member of the Crime Writer's Association of Canada, where his private eye has been described as a cherished national institution.
Listeners come to an Engel mystery looking for rich descriptive backgrounds to murders that almost seem incidental to the events surrounding them. This is certainly true of Murder in Montparnasse, narrated by Geoffrey Howard, which uses the appearance of a French Jack the Ripper to introduce listeners to Left Bank life in Paris of 1925. As murders occur-gruesome though they may be-they seldom interrupt the endless parties and coffee-house musings of the foreigners who all seem to be struggling writers. The huge cast of characters include thinly veiled portraits of such authors as Hemingway (who has written a book that could expose the identity of "Jack de Paris"), F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and others. This is one drawing-room book best savored and enjoyed slowly, like reading the Sunday edition of a major newspaper. Unfortunately, the audio quality often makes it difficult to understand the English accents given to French words. Recommended for medium and large public library collections.-Joseph L. Carlson, Lompoc P.L., CA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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