In Chris Knopf’s latest mystery, “Head
Wounds,” his existential hero Sam Acquillo is back, relaxing
in his hideaway overlooking Little Peconic Bay, trying to lead
a simple, semialcoholic, but otherwise peaceful life. He has
barely survived the battering he absorbed in Mr. Knopf’s
two previous mysteries set in the Hamptons, “The Last Refuge” and “Two
Time.” Now he just wants to sit in his screened-in porch
with Eddie, his beloved mutt, at his feet, and take in the sunsets,
enhanced as they are by a considerable consumption of vodka.
He
must also ponder the nuances of his relationship with the lovely
but disruptive Amanda Anselmo. Fortunately for the Acquillo series,
peace and a simple routine are not in the cards for Sam — in
fact, from the outset, trouble seems to home in on him like a
heat-seeking missile.
The book opens with Sam on a date with Amanda: “Whoever
made Amanda’s dress had apparently forgotten to add the
back, conserving even more material around the neck and hemline.
I liked the way she looked.” He
winds up defending her from the drunken advances of a local builder,
Robert Milhouser, who is pestering her to go into real estate
development with him. There is a public confrontation with Milhouser
and his crew outside a Southampton restaurant.
When,
that same week, one of Amanda’s properties goes
up in flames and Milhouser is later found dead with his head
bashed in, Sam becomes the chief suspect in his murder. The police
have solid evidence against him — the murder weapon is
his and covered with his fingerprints, and, moreover, he has
no alibi. So before an indictment is handed down and he finds
himself in jail, he has to come up with the real culprit.
Fortunately,
Sam, a former engineer and high-powered corporate problem-solver,
is very smart. He has also earned the loyalty of an eclectic
group of helpful friends: a local cop, Joe Sullivan, who is willing
to bend a few rules to keep him informed, an old-timer, Paul
Hodges, who owns the Pequot restaurant, and two lawyers from
different ends of the social spectrum, the patrician Burton Lewis
and the outspoken, irrepressible Jackie Swartkoweski.
What makes
the Acquillo series so enjoyable is that the writer assumes a
level of intelligence in the reader, which is always flattering.
(Though I must admit that Sam’s reading matter when he
visits Hodges’s
fishing-shack eatery, a book by the philosopher Immanuel Kant,
struck me as a touch pretentious.) No matter what problem or
activity Sam is tackling, the reader is engaged and will get
an education because, whether it’s
the intricacies of custom carpentry (Sam is now a carpenter by
trade) or a game of pool, Mr. Knopf is thoroughly versed in the
subject.
And then there’s the dialogue, which fairly
crackles off the page. I found myself rereading certain passages
for the sheer delight they give through their precision and pacing — the
humorous comebacks always hit their target. Mr. Knopf’s
use of the perfect, succinct phrase has been the hallmark of
all three novels.
The complex character of the protagonist, Sam
Acquillo, is at the heart of the series. Moody and reckless,
in the past his unruly temperament and a vindictive streak have
cost him his trophy wife and his high-salaried job as a corporate
executive, after which he hit the skids in spectacular fashion.
Now in seclusion in the Hamptons, he is trying to control the
belligerence that got him into so much trouble.
In the previous
two Acquillo mysteries, Sam was introduced as a first-rate amateur
boxer, which gave him a decided advantage over the various hired
thugs he encountered in the course of his investigations. In “Head
Wounds” he is still keeping himself in shape, by running
and with regular sessions with a punching bag in the gym, but
in this third mystery, Mr. Knopf has introduced an added complication.
As a result of his many fights, in and out of the ring, Sam cannot,
his neurologist warns him, risk another knockout. One more concussion
could put him in a vegetative state.
It is a sign of his recovery
that he goes to great lengths to avoid this possibility. Sam
is maturing and would rather rely on his brain than brawn to
find the answers to the mystery surrounding Milhouser’s
death. He now has a life he is reluctant to lose. As Amanda puts
it, he is becoming “a full citizen in the land of the living.”
Changing
patterns of behavior is not easy, as we all know. Can Sam keep
up his good intentions? Only time, and perhaps a fourth Acquillo
mystery, will tell.
“Head Wounds”
Chris Knopf
Permanent Press, $28
—
Chris Knopf has a house in Southampton.
Jennifer Hartig, British by birth, American by choice, is
a writer and former stage actress who lives in Noyac.
