Howard Engel was a producer for the CBC for many years. The Cooperman Variations is his tenth Benny Cooperman novel, and he has also written Murder in Montparnasse and Mr. Doyle and Dr. Bell, a Sherlockian delight. A founding member of the Crime Writers of Canada, Howard Engel won the 1990 Harbourfront Festival Prize for Canadian Literature and the 1984 Arthur Ellis Award for Crime Fiction. He was recently the Barker Fairley Distinguished Visitor in Canadian Culture at the University of Toronto.