THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Sunday,
June 4, 2006
Beaches are good places for brooding, you'll have noticed, and Sam Acquillo, the protagonist of Chris Knopf's TWO TIME is a world-class brooder. A dropout from the corporate world, Sam lives in a humble cottage on Little Peconic Bay in the Long Island resort town of Southampton, where he drinks a bit, fiddles with his 1967 Pontiac Grand Prix and from time to time pulls himself out of his habitual funk to run a quiet, intelligent investigation into local events that pique his curiosity - like the inexplicable firebomb attack on an investment adviser who was sitting in his Lexus in a restaurant parking lot. Knopf has a touch I like - cool, careful, reflective - and a great ear for the comic eccentricities of the human voice. Maybe it comes from sitting out on a deck, listening to the gulls squawk.
