At the start
of The Last Refuge (2005), the first
novel in this tough, brooding new series by Chris Knopf, SAM
ACQUILLO is disillusioned, divorced, and working hard
on disassociating himself from everything and everybody.
He has moved into his deceased parents' ramshackle
cottage in Southampton, at the tip of Oak Point overlooking Little
Peconic Bay. There, in the company of his mutt dog Eddie, who
he rescued from a pound gas chamber in order to have an excuse
to talk out loud once in awhile “without technically talking to myself”,
he is content to sit on the screened-in front porch, smoke Camel
cigarettes, drink Absolut vodka, and gaze out over the Little
Peconic …
Until his closest neighbor -- a grouchy, demanding old widow
who has become dependant upon Sam's handyman capabilities --
turns up dead in her bathtub, an apparent accident. At least
at first.
Since the old lady died with no
next of kin except for a dim-witted, anti-social nephew, Sam
finds himself roped into becoming administrator for the deceased's
interests. Surprisingly, it turns out that the woman did not
own the house she had lived in for so many years yet there is
no record of her ever paying rent and who actually does own the
house is mired in a tangle of legal paperwork. One curiosity
leads to another and another until Acquillo's suspicions are
fully aroused and he ultimately comes to believe the woman's
death was no accident at all.
Although not a trained sleuth in
any conventional way, Acquillo had for most of his adult life
headed a high-level team of troubleshooting engineers for a mega-corporation,
a job he'd departed angrily and violently, the first move in
a sequence of life-trashing events, up to and including a messy
divorce, that ultimately brought him to his self-imposed exile.
His engineer's eye for details and his troubleshooter's knack
for probing prove to be very useful investigative tools. These,
combined with the innate toughness he inherited from his sometimes-brutal
father and the physical discipline he'd honed as a semi-pro boxer,
make Acquillo a distinct and believable protagonist. He is aided
and encouraged by Joe Sullivan, a wary Southampton cop.
By the conclusion of the events in the first book
and its sequel, Two
Time (2006), Sam is no longer quite the exiled loner
he intended to be. He is surrounded by a small cast of quirkily
interesting regulars: Sullivan the cop; a couple of lawyers (one
male, one female) who are equally colorful but drastically different
in their styles; a philosopher-bartender and his tart-tongued
daughter; a new neighbor lady who is somewhat demanding in her
own rite but anything but old and dour; and, of course, the mutt
Eddie.
Knopf's writing is somewhat stylistic, detailed and evocative.
His dialogue is crisp and realistic and there are welcome dashes
of wry humor that balance the tone perfectly to maintain just
the right degree of moodiness.
One hopes we'll be seeing a lot
more of Knopf and Acquillo.
