Howard Engel, Honored as a True Master of the Detective Novel + an Epitaph to Oliver Sacks

August 30, 2015 update: Sad word this morning brings news of the death of Oliver Sacks at age 82. It was an honor and a privilege in 2006 to publish an essay by him as the Afterword to Howard Engel’s ingenious mystery novel Memory Book, a piece that was also published in The New Yorker. The novelist consulted with Dr. Sacks after he’d suffered a stroke that left him with alexia sine agraphia, aka word-blindness, a condition that leaves a patient unable to read, though able to still write. Sacks continued writing about Engel’s condittion in subsequent years, with a 2010 New Yorker piece and then in his 2010 book The Mind’s Eye. (If as a tribute to Sacks The New Yorker opens its online archive outside their paywall I will link to the articles here.) The blog post below, written in 2013 as a tribute to Engel now stands also as a testament to the generosity and curiosity of Dr. Oliver Sacks, RIP.
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EngelI’m very happy to see that Canadian mystery author Howard Engel—author of Memory Book, a Benny Cooperman Detective novel with an Afterword by Oliver Sacks, which I published in the US in 2006—will receive this year’s Grand Master award from the Crime Writers of Canada. Their announcement reads,

The Crime Writers of Canada has. . .added an eighth prize to their list of awards this year. The CWC Grand Master Award for Crime Writing in Canada will go to a Canadian crime writer with a substantial body of work that has garnered national and international recognition. This year the award will go to Howard Engel, author of the award-winning Benny Cooperman detective series.

Engel is a gem. Here are some of the words his fellow writers have used to describe him:

“Benny Cooperman is a lot of fun to hang out [with]. I’m delighted to see him getting into trouble again.”—Donald E. Westlake

“Mr Engel is a born writer, a natural stylist…This is a writer who can bring a character to life in a few lines.”—Ruth Rendell

“Engel can turn a phrase as neatly as Chandler…Benny Cooperman novels [are] first-class entertainment, stylishly written, the work of an original, distinctive, and distinctively Canadian talent.”—Julian Symons

The prolific Sacks, neurologist and author, contributed an essay to Engel’s book because he was fascinated by a condition the author had endured. Engel wrote Memory Book after suffering a rare kind of stroke that left him with alexia sine agraphia, aka word-blindness. He was no longer able to read, but somehow still capable of writing. Painstakingly and ingeniously, Engel placed his protagonist, private eye Cooperman, in a similarly perplexing condition. According to a post by blogger Allyson Latta, Sacks still consults with Engel from time to time on the mysteries of his condition. Showing that the writing of Memory Book was no fluke, in 2008 Engel published his twelfth book in the Cooperman series, East of Suez, and in July 2014 he will publish City of Fallen Angels, featuring a new series character, Mike Ward. I’m very glad this recognition is being given to Howard Engel, and I’m also very happy for his agent, Beverley Slopen.Memory BookMemory Book back coverHoward Engel titles

A Useful Delay on Keystone XL Shows What Little Leverage PM Harper has with President Obama

As the LA Times reports this afternoon, ongoing litigation that is challenging the proposed Keystone XL pipeline over the probable effects it would have on a key aquifer in Nebraska will create a delay of several additional months in the Obama administration’s deliberations on the Alberta-Texas pipeline, pushing a decision until after the US’s mid-term elections next November. That’s helpful politically to the president and DEMs for several reasons covered in the story, but there’s an additional effect I don’t mind at all: it shows that ham-handed nudging of the president by Canadian Prime Minister Harper and his ministers, which in one notorious instance slandered environmental groups in Canada and the USA, and efforts mounted by companies like TransCanada, haven’t amounted to much in the way of effective pressure on the administration. If anything, it makes Harper look weak in regard to oil policy, supposedly his strength. That, plus significant challenges to the pipelines out west, including from First Nations Canadians, should set Harper back on his heels, even as the 2015 Canadian federal election nears.

I’m pleased as an American who follows Canadian politics, and as someone hoping to see the Alberta tar sands–with their high cost to the environment, and whose end product would burn with high emissions–stay in the ground. I’m also pleased that it displeases PM Harper and the drill-baby-drill crowd in the US, frustrating their zeal to exercise rapacity toward natural resources and the environment.

Forthcoming McGarrigle Book I’ll Be Eager to Read

This forthcoming book was announced in PublishersMarketplace.com’s daily deal newsletter today:

Anna McGarrigle and Jane McGarrigle’s story of the McGarrigle sisters, the Canadian singer-songwriters who became famous during the folk music revival of the 1960s (the other half of the duo, Kate, passed away in 2010), recounting their family story, idiosyncratic upbringing, and musical influences, to Amanda Lewis at Random House Canada, for publication in October 2015 (world rights).

As a tribute to these great musical sisters from Montreal, here’s a video of them performing their achingly beautiful song, “Heart Like a Wheel,” with a group that includes Linda Ronstadt and Maria Muldaur. Note: Kate is playing piano, while Anna is standing, second from the left, next to Linda Ronstadt. I wonder if there will be a US edition, or just distributed copies of the Canadian edition in the States?