Sam Acquillo has spent most of his time in the Hamptons hanging out with the other half of the moneyed wonderland cops and bartenders, carpenters, store clerks and firemen. He couldn't care less about the concerns of the 1%, until his best friend Burton Lewis, a certified billionaire, is dragged into a high-profile death investigation. When Sam's girlfriend Amanda notes, "Didn't Fitzgerald say, 'the rich are different from you and me'?" "Yeah, they can afford to be even more screwed up." A former corporate super star, brought down by the machinations of the grasping class, Sam's not entirely unfamiliar with the cultural norms of super wealth. It's why he retreated to his cottage refuge at the tip of Oak Point Peninsula jutting into the Little Peconic Bay. But in the intervening years, he's engaged with all forms of low life tough guys and connivers looking for that edge, an easy path into a social order besotted with unattainable yearning. A world where the best revenge is one...

Imagine this: You have a nice life. You love your beautiful, successful wife. You're an easygoing guy working out of your comfortable Connecticut home. The world is an interesting, pleasant place. Then in seconds it's all gone. You're still alive, but the world thinks you're dead. And now you have to decide. Make it official, or go after the evil that took it all away from you. Arthur Cathcart, market researcher and occasional finder of missing persons, decides to live on a fight, by doing what he knows best - figuring things out, without revealing his status as a living breathing human being. Much easier said than done in a post- 9/11 world, where everything about yourself and all the tools you need to live a modern life are an open book. How do you become a different person, how do you finance an elaborate scheme without revealing yourself? How do you force a reckoning with the worst people on earth, as a dead man?

Sam Acquillo can hide in his windswept waterfront cottage all he wants, but the demons of his past are going to find him. Worse, they've teamed up with some pretty nasty demons of the present, including a very determined Chief of Police whose top detective has Sam caught in the crosshairs. Part-time carpenter, full-time drinker and co-conspirator with an existential mutt named Eddie Van Halen, Sam tries to lead the simple life. But as always, fate intervenes, this time in the form of Robbie Milhouser, local builder and blundering bully who shares at least one thing with Sam — an irresistible attraction to the beautiful Amanda Anselma. Peel back the glitz and glory of the fabled Hamptons and you'll find a beautiful place filled with ugly secrets. This is Sam Acquillo's world. Moving effortlessly across the social divide with wry pal Jackie Swaitkowski and rich guy Burton Lewis, the ex-boxer, ex-corporate infighter seems doomed to straddle the thin red line between envy and love, hate and forgiveness, goodness and greed. And sometimes life and death. Only this time, the life at stake is his own. From the Hardcover edition.

Sam Acquillo’s at the end of the line. A middle-aged corporate dropout living in his dead parents’ ramshackle cottage in the Hamptons, Sam has abandoned his friends, family and a big-time career to sit on his porch, drink vodka and stare at the Little Peconic Bay. But when the old lady next door ends up floating dead in her bathtub it seems like Sam is the only one who wonders why. Burned-out, busted up and cynical, the ex-engineer, ex-professional boxer, ex-loving father and husband finds himself uncovering secrets no one could have imagined, least of all Sam himself. Meanwhile, a procession of quirky characters intrudes on Sam’s misanthropic ways. A beautiful banker, pot-smoking lawyer, bug-eyed fisherman and gay billionaire join a full complement of cops, thugs and local luminaries in this tale of money and murder. From the Trade Paperback edition. From Publishers Weekly Sam Acquillo, the hero of Knopf's arresting debut (a Book Sense notable selection for May), is the very epitome of the dropout. An ex-corporation man, divorced from his wife and estranged from his daughter, he lives in his parents' run-down cottage in Southampton, Long Island, and seems content to drink himself into oblivion. Then one day he finds the black and swollen body of his elderly neighbor, Regina Broadhurst, who has apparently drowned in her bathtub. Is it an accident or murder? And if it's the latter, will solving the mystery behind Regina's death enable Sam to pick up the pieces of his life and move on? While the promotional copy's likening the book to Camus's The Plague may be a stretch, there's a definite whiff of Elmore Leonard here, particularly in the snappy dialogue and the colorful, oddball characters, including a gay billionaire. Knopf's effortless narrative style and sense of humor bode well for the further adventures of Sam Acquillo.

In this, the fourth installment in the Sam Acquillo series, Sam’s past reaches out to pull him back into the world of big money and even bigger egos, where the term “corporate intrigue” is redundant and ambition the only virtue. It seems a woman vital to the private life of a very important person has gone missing in the Hamptons. And it looks like the best way to get her back is to extort the cooperation of Sam Acquillo. After finally achieving some measure of peace and contentment on Long Island, Sam is yet again an accidental player in other people’s dramas. It takes him into the world of private security goons, predatory financiers and lifestyles of young hedonists, some brave, some beautiful, all a bit lost. This time Sam has a few ambitions of his own that lead him into something all his battles in the ring and corporate boardrooms could never have prepared him for. From the Hardcover edition. From Publishers Weekly Sam Acquillo, who left his job as head of the Technical Services and Support Division of Con Globe for the humdrum life of a skilled carpenter in the Hamptons, is still a magnet for trouble in Knopf's rewarding fourth mystery (after 2008's Head Wounds ). George Donovan, Con Globe's chairman of the board, tries a carrot and stick approach to get Acquillo to find his missing girlfriend, Iku Kinjo, a brilliant and compelling consultant. Half of that ploy works, and Acquillo is drawn back into the deadly machinations of corporate intrigue, where the payoff may be wealth or death. Knopf blends familiar elements (cop ally; cop nemesis; bad ex-wife; beautiful, independent girlfriend) in unusually pleasing fashion and adds plenty of original touches as well. Aside from his surprising computer illiteracy, Acquillo is a savvy operator who loves problem solving and has the tenacity of a pit bull. His penchant for intriguing predicaments bodes well for a long and successful series.

Arthur Cathcart and Natsumi Fitzgerald wanted to believe they were free of the nearly invisible, malignant forces they had pursued, and been pursued by, across continents and oceans. The slightly brain-damaged tech freak researcher and the blackjack dealing psychologist had convinced themselves that life aboard a sail boat in the Caribbean, incognito and in love, could be a lasting refuge. The death of that illusion was as brutal as it was abrupt. Even people who knew how to dodge ruthless outlaws and relentless law enforcement learned there were powers from which no one could ever hide. Not in the 21st century. Not if you wanted more than to simply exist. To truly live in the world, you had to have a world that allows you to live. Soldiers fighting in Vietnam had a saying when pinned down under enemy fire: The only way out is through. And so it is that Arthur and Natsumi take to the fight, where the full expanse of both the virtual and material world is the field of engagement.

Sam Acquillo can hide in his windswept waterfront cottage all he wants, but the demons of his past are going to find him. Worse, they've teamed up with some pretty nasty demons of the present, including a very determined Chief of Police whose top detective has Sam caught in the crosshairs. Part-time carpenter, full-time drinker and co-conspirator with an existential mutt named Eddie Van Halen, Sam tries to lead the simple life. But as always, fate intervenes, this time in the form of Robbie Milhouser, local builder and blundering bully who shares at least one thing with Sam — an irresistible attraction to the beautiful Amanda Anselma.Peel back the glitz and glory of the fabled Hamptons and you'll find a beautiful place filled with ugly secrets. This is Sam Acquillo's world. Moving effortlessly across the social divide with wry pal Jackie Swaitkowski and rich guy Burton Lewis, the ex-boxer, ex-corporate infighter seems doomed to straddle the thin red line between envy and love, hate and forgiveness, goodness and greed.And sometimes life and death. Only this time, the life at stake is his own.From the Hardcover edition.From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Ex-boxer and former corporate exec Sam Acquillo, now a hard-drinking carpenter living in a run-down cottage on the shores of the Little Peconic Bay in Southampton, N.Y., becomes the prime suspect in the murder of local builder Robbie Milhouser in Knopf's superb third Hamptons mystery (after Two Time and The Last Refuge). With the evidence against him almost overwhelming, Acquillo enlists a misfit group of supporters to help him uncover the real killer's identity. As he digs into the dead man's troubled past, Acquillo discovers a disturbing link between Milhouser and Acquillo's current girlfriend, Amanda Battiston. Knopf excels in describing the rustic underpinnings of Long Island's east end, especially its vast array of eccentric characters. Brisk pacing and sharp dialogue carry the reader along, but it's the endearing and deeply flawed Acquillo that's the heart and soul of this exceptional series. How can you go wrong with a philosophizing hero who drinks Absolut, reads Kant, drives a '67 Grand Prix and has a dog named Eddie Van Halen? (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistSam Acquillo—ex-boxer, ex-husband, and now an Absolut-drinking construction worker on the east end of the Hamptons—shouldn’t be mixing it up with the likes of Robbie Milhouser, a local bully who flirts a bit too much with Sam’s flame, Amanda Anselma. After all, his doctors have told him that another head wound is the last thing he needs. Just as a brawl seems to be in the offing, Robbie up and dies, and Sam seems to be holding the smoking gun—that is, in this case, a staple gun that easily traces back to him. Sam, who also has some amateur sleuthing on his résumé (The Last Refuge, 2005), puts his sharp mind and caustic wit to use in tracking back how the unfortunate Robbie met his demise. The Hamptons setting provides much of the appeal here, but it’s not the Polo-playing side of the island we see but, rather, the seamier underside (yes, even the Hamptons have an underside). Slow-starting Sam makes the perfect antihero for our guided tour of the wrong side of the tracks. Another satisfying entry in an endearing series. --Mary Frances Wilkens

In this, the fourth installment in the Sam Acquillo series, Sam’s past reaches out to pull him back into the world of big money and even bigger egos, where the term “corporate intrigue” is redundant and ambition the only virtue. It seems a woman vital to the private life of a very important person has gone missing in the Hamptons. And it looks like the best way to get her back is to extort the cooperation of Sam Acquillo. After finally achieving some measure of peace and contentment on Long Island, Sam is yet again an accidental player in other people’s dramas. It takes him into the world of private security goons, predatory financiers and lifestyles of young hedonists, some brave, some beautiful, all a bit lost. This time Sam has a few ambitions of his own that lead him into something all his battles in the ring and corporate boardrooms could never have prepared him for.From the Hardcover edition.From Publishers WeeklySam Acquillo, who left his job as head of the Technical Services and Support Division of Con Globe for the humdrum life of a skilled carpenter in the Hamptons, is still a magnet for trouble in Knopf's rewarding fourth mystery (after 2008's Head Wounds). George Donovan, Con Globe's chairman of the board, tries a carrot and stick approach to get Acquillo to find his missing girlfriend, Iku Kinjo, a brilliant and compelling consultant. Half of that ploy works, and Acquillo is drawn back into the deadly machinations of corporate intrigue, where the payoff may be wealth or death. Knopf blends familiar elements (cop ally; cop nemesis; bad ex-wife; beautiful, independent girlfriend) in unusually pleasing fashion and adds plenty of original touches as well. Aside from his surprising computer illiteracy, Acquillo is a savvy operator who loves problem solving and has the tenacity of a pit bull. His penchant for intriguing predicaments bodes well for a long and successful series. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From School Library JournalStarred Review. In his fourth outing (after Head Wounds), corporate dropout-turned-carpenter/PI Sam Acquillo is forced to look for the missing girlfriend of his former boss, George Donovan. As Sam traces the successful young businesswoman to a house on Long Island shared with a bunch of Gen-Xers from Manhattan, he uncovers what looks like dirty business dealings. Knopf is very much a contemporary crime writer, revealing the dangers of the world of big deals, commercial espionage, and the barracudas hanging out for all they can get. For readers who enjoy hard-boiled mysteries in the tradition of Raymond Chandler and Robert Parker. [Knopf has contracted a two-book spinoff series with St. Martin's based on Acquillo's friend Jackie Swaitkowski.—Ed.] Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Crazy weather, crazy artists, organized crime, and digital wizardry all play a role in a murder mystery that could only happen in the Hamptons.It's the worst winter on record. Jackie Swaitkowski has made the transition from lackadaisical, pot-smoking real-estate lawyer to obsessive, pot-smoking criminal defense attorney. And now, not only are there blizzards to contend with, her ne're-do-well client is headed for a first-degree murder rap.The case pulls Jackie reluctantly back into her late husband's extended, and famously outrageous, family. Complicating matters is a handsome journalist whose interest in Jackie exceeds the professional. Ice Cap marks the return of Jackie Swaitkowski, outlandish lawyer to the rich and criminal, by award-winning author Chris Knopf, who's been praised by Publishers Weekly for his "hard-boiled dialogue worthy of Elmore Leonard or John D. MacDonald."

The sixth installment in the Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery series brings back Knopf's ensemble of famously eccentric and involving characters, not the least being Sam's dog Eddie Van Halen. A hardboiled crime novel, it also examines the fraught intersection of wealth, culture, politics and the ravages of an ugly war. Combine a beautiful watery setting with a unique look into the underbelly of the Hamptons, it's an action and suspense story you won't find anywhere else.It's bad enough when someone you know is brutally murdered, it's worse when the guy was a paranoid schizophrenic helplessly bound to a wheelchair. Sam Acquillo and Jackie Swaitkowski tried to look after Alfie Aldergreen, as had others around the Village of Southampton, but now they were forced to wonder, what else could they have done?

Sailing back from Maine, Sam Acquillo, the hero of four Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mysteries, his girlfriend Amanda Anselma and screwball mutt Eddie Van Halen get blown off course by a dangerous gale. With damaged boat and frayed nerves, they limp into the closest harbor, which happens to be on Fishers Island, NY, a distant and altogether disassociated scrap of Long Island. A summer preserve for the oldest old money in America, and defended by year-round denizens who safeguard their island's insularity with xenophobic fervor, Sam and Amanda are hardly welcomed with open arms. Unless they're the arms of the young and beautiful Anika Fey, daughter of the owner of the Black Swan, the island's only hotel, who's only too eager to fold Sam into her embrace. But feminine wiles aren't the only hazard faced by Sam and his crew. They're soon swept up in big-money intrigue, dark conspiracy, brutality, murder, and the machinations of high-tech millionaires, to say nothing of the autumn storms...

Jackie Swaitkowski may not be the most buttoned-up lawyer in the Hamptons, but a plane crash before her very eyes is hard to miss. Just before the struggling air taxi takes a nosedive, its female pilot tosses out a camera case. To Jackie, the accident's only witness, the case (so to speak) seems meant for her. The camera's memory card holds an unusual set of photos. Jackie recognizes more than a few of the faces in those pictures. Are they telling her the story of the crash? The pilot, a hard-nosed biker chick named Eugenie Birkson, came from a family tree filled with ex-cons, and boasted a passenger list packed with high society. And Jackie soon learns that solving the mystery of Eugenie's death will mean uncovering some dark secrets from her own past as well. All this and a freshly revived romance with gentle giant Harry Goodlander, and Jackie yet again has her heart and her hands full. Award-winning mystery writer Chris Knopf returns to Southampton, a one-of-a-kind small town where the rich and the rest of us rub shoulders on a daily basis, generating all the frictions that might imply.

Sam Aquillo – ex-boxer, ex-corporate executive and accidental hero of The Last Refuge – is back in this action-packed, page-turning sequel. All Sam wants to do is hammer a few nails into his ramshackle cottage, drink a great deal of vodka, hang out with his dog, Eddie, and stay out of trouble. But trouble seems to find him anyway. When a car bomb outside a trendy waterfront restaurant kills a prominent financial consultant and injures Sam and his lawyer friend Jackie Swaitkowski, he is drawn into the investigation. Where the police have met roadblocks, Sam makes inroads with his trademark wit, instinct and charm. Also, he just wants to know: Why would someone go to such lengths not only to kill someone, but annihilate them? Set, once again, against the backdrop of Southhampton, Long Island, Two Time is full of moody sunsets, beachfront properties and beautiful people with an extraordinary amount of money and very dangerous secrets. From the Hardcover edition.