The Ransom Game was published by Clarke, Irwin in 1981, the second Benny Cooperman mystery and a book that deepens both the character and his world. Benny is hired to investigate a kidnapping that may or may not be genuine — the victim’s family seems oddly unperturbed, and the ransom demands have a theatrical quality that suggests something other than a straightforward crime.
Engel sets the novel partly in the Niagara wine country — the vineyards and wineries of the region south of Grantham — and uses the setting to explore the economic and social changes transforming rural Ontario in the early 1980s. The wine industry represents new money (cosmopolitan, European-inflected, aspirational) entering a community governed by old money (Protestant, conservative, suspicious of outsiders).
Benny navigates these social tensions with his characteristic combination of diffidence and persistence. He is not a tough guy; he is not even particularly brave. What he possesses is the detective’s essential virtue: the refusal to accept the obvious explanation, the willingness to keep asking questions even when everyone involved would prefer him to stop.
Collecting The Ransom Game
First edition (Clarke, Irwin, Toronto, 1981): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $25–$60
- Without jacket: $5–$15