Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine

SUNDAY, JULY 27, 2008

Head Wounds - Chris Knopf

Sam Acquillo is a former corporate trouble-shooter and ex-boxer who's taken one too many shots to the head. Now he works as a carpenter in the Hamptons, drinks too much vodka, and hides from his past. I don't know what you think of when you hear the phrase the Hamptons, but we small-town Texans tend to think of a playground for the very rich. Not surprisingly, there's another side of the coin, and that's the Hamptons that we get here.

Acquillo has a public confrontation with a bully named Robbie Milhouser, who's promptly murdered. With Acquillo's stapler. Naturally Acquillo's the prime suspect, and he has to clear himself. Lucky for him he's been involved in amateur sleuthing before (in two previous novels that slipped under my radar), so he knows the gig.

Acquillo's a moody, troubled guy, and the book leans toward the literary, but it has plenty of snappy patter and smart dialogue. Check it out.