Newsday August 25, 2008
Hamptons
book review: 'Head Wounds"
HEAD WOUNDS
By Chris Knopf
The Permanent Press, 310 pages, $28.
Sam Acquillo has a time bomb
in his brain. Retired from a boxing career, he has already exhausted
his “lifetime concussion
allotment” - if he takes another blow to the head, he risks
being permanently down for the count.
We first meet Sam in Southampton
Village, dining with his heiress girlfriend, Amanda, who owns
the Jacob’s Neck and Oak Point
properties. When the town lughead, Robbie Milhouser, interrupts
their meal to “convince” Amanda to sell him a property,
things turn ugly. Sam takes care of the situation the only way
he knows how - by fighting. Later, the aforementioned property
burns down, and they suspect Milhouser. Then, when Milhouser
is found dead, Sam is deemed the prime suspect.
Clearing his name
becomes Sam’s number-one priority, and
the adventure begins. Being a suspect, Sam sarcastically observes,
is a “joyful thing for a guy who never took vacations,
and who liked to stay near home to be available for intermittent
police investigations.” Will he prove his innocence - and
keep his nose clean? Knopf makes it worth our while to take the
ride and find out.
- Akilah Fortson |
