Cop Job

by Chris Knopf

Overview

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 they could have done.

One thing is for certain, Alfie's killers are about to know what it means to murder a friend of Sam-former corporate troubleshooter, former professional boxer, and all-around ornery bulldog-and Jackie, a defense lawyer often described as an avenging angel.

This sixth installment in the Sam Acquillo Hamptons mystery series brings back Knopf's ensemble of famously eccentric and involving characters, not the least of which is Sam's mutt, Eddie Van Halen. Not just a crime story, it examines the fraught intersection of wealth, culture, politics, and the ravages of an ugly war. Combining beautiful watery settings with a unique look into the underbelly of the Hamptons, it's a mystery you won't find anywhere else.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781410484635
Publisher:	Gale Group
Publication date:	12/23/2015
Series:	A Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	425
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Chris Knopf's mystery novels have received exceptional awards and accolades, with critics likening his character Sam Aquillo to Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade, Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, and Robert B. Parker's Spenser, while repeatedly comparing Knopf's work to that of Elmore Leonard, John D. MacDonald, and Ross Macdonald. Two Time was one of thirteen mysteries listed as recommended summer reading in the New York Times Book Review, and Publishers Weekly chose it as one of the "Best 100 Books for 2006." Head Wounds won the 2008 Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Mystery. Dead Anyway was listed on the 2012 Best Fiction lists of both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. Knopf is a sailor, cabinetmaker, and advertising executive in Connecticut. He and his wife Mary also spend considerable time at their Long Island home in Southampton.

Keith Szarabajka has appeared in many films, including The Dark Knight, Missing, and A Perfect World, and on such television shows as The Equalizer, Angel, Cold Case, Golden Years, and Profit. Szarabajka has also appeared in several episodes of Selected Shorts for National Public Radio. He won the 2001 Audie Award for Unabridged Fiction for his reading of Tom Robbins' Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates and has won several Earphones Awards.

Editorial Reviews

2015-07-01
After several years following his two other series sleuths, Jackie Swaitkowski and Arthur Cathcart (A Billion Ways to Die, 2014, etc.), Knopf returns to Hamptons executive-turned-cabinetmaker Sam Acquillo, the hero who launched his fictional career. Alfie Aldergreen was already living such a marginal life that it's hard to believe it's ended. But someone's taken the trouble to duct-tape the addled, crippled Iraq War vet to his own wheelchair and drown him. Make that at least two someones, since there were no wheel tracks leading up to the spot where Paul Hodges spied Alfie's head poking out of the water. Why would anyone have targeted such a harmless victim? Southampton Town Police Chief Ross Semple, who's usually the first one to warn Sam off homicides on his patch (Black Swan, 2011, etc.), makes it clear he wants Sam's help this time. And a conference with Suffolk County DA Edith Madison and comely ADA Oksana Quan suggests an obvious reason why: because Alfie is the third confidential police informant to die suddenly. Nor has his death ended the cycle of violence. The rear window of Sam's 1967 Grand Prix is bashed in to discourage him. Then, apparently in case he hasn't gotten the idea to lay off, his daughter, Allison, is attacked in her Manhattan apartment and left in a coma. Sam's even hit by a fish truck in what seems to be an unrelated incident. All of these provocations have exactly the effect you'd expect, sending Sam diving ever deeper into the murky waters of past and present felonies. The fog gets so thick, in fact, that some readers will doubt Knopf can cut through it all. But he does, with a keen, deadly final stroke that makes this sixth case one of Sam's best.

Kirkus Reviews