Sam Acquillo is an unemployed
divorcee living in a cottage he inherited on the shores of
Little Peconic Bay on Long
Island. He watches
the bay from the screened-in porch of the house as he sips
Absolut. “I
didn’t have a strict rule about drinking during the
day, just a general guideline—no hard liquor before
noon.” (p159)
One day he notices that his cranky and demanding neighbor,
Regina Broadhurst, has not been seen around. He perceives
a strange smell
coming from the direction of her home and investigates. “She
was in the bathtub. Black and swollen, face down in the
water.” (p8)
He calls the authorities. Since the only relative she has
is a feisty and argumentative young man named Jimmy Maddox,
Sam asks
if he himself might be the administrator of her estate.
He suspects foul play in her death but the authorities
are not
interested.
He insists on an autopsy.
Sam is a former amateur boxer
with an anger issues. He is an engineer and had worked
for a firm which paid him
handsomely
but one day
at a board meeting words were exchanged. “I wasn’t
speaking to him anyway, but to Mason Thigpin. . . . He
said something back, which I don’t remember either,
though I think it’s
in the DA’s file. I do remember lurching across the
table and grabbing Mason by the fat Windsor knot he had
clinched up around
his throat. I remember pulling back my right fist and hearing
Louise Silberg yelping in my ear.” (p181) Sam thought
it best to tender his resignation. That combination of
anger and boxing skills
proves on occasion to be problematic but comes in handy
as he sets out to discover why anyone would want to get
rid of Regina Broadhurst.
Sam is a crusty middle aged guy,
shaped by his childhood in a dysfunctional family. These
factors spill over into
his adult
life but he strives
to be a good guy. He is a loner and he likes it that
way. Nonetheless, a number of women show an interest in him:
Rosaline, the 40ish
daughter of an elderly attorney whose knowledge of local
events is of great value to Sam in his investigation
and Amanda, the
wife of the town banker. He is smart, too, and this natural
intelligence
allows him to dig successfully into the secrets surrounding
the death of Regina. He is regarded as a threat by the
bad guys and
they import a goon to discourage his efforts. Some real
estate schemes are uncovered with the assistance of Jackie
Swaitkowski,
a young attorney and very colorful long time native of
the area.
This is a story of small town overly ambitious
self-seekers who band together with some city people to achieve
the
hoped for
financial jackpot. No more financial worries if this
scheme goes through.
But along comes Sam.
