Two Time
Chris Knopf. Permanent, $26 (262p) ISBN 1-57962-129-5
At the
start of Knopf's super second mystery starring ex-boxer and
retired engineer Sam Acquillo (after 2005's The Last
Refuge), Sam is enjoying a drink with a lady friend at an East
Hampton
restaurant when a nearby car and its driver are firebombed
out of existence.
In the aftermath, Sam, assisted by his old buddy, retired
cop Joe Sullivan, looks into who might have had it in for the
victim,
wealthy
consultant Jonathan Eldridge. After talking to Eldridge's
agoraphobic widow and suspicious-acting lawyer, Sam continues
to investigate—and
the more he pokes around the more data he turns up suggesting
a complex deception involving financial transfers, angry
clients who may or may not be Mafia-connected, the murdered
man's estranged
artist brother and out-of-it mother. A sly depiction of the
east end of Long Island and the Hamptons as they really are,
combined
with strong plotting, solid characters and hard-boiled dialogue
worthy of Elmore Leonard or John D. MacDonald will make this
a
beach read that you won't be able to put down even under
threat of sunburn. (June)
