Chris Knopf

Investigating an unusual set of photos taken by a plane crash victim, Jackie Swaitkowski is surprised to discover familiar, notorious faces in the pictures and realizes that the plane crash may be tied to a mystery from Jackie's own past.

Sam Acquillo can hide in his windswept waterfront cottage all he wants, but the demons of his past are going to find him. Worse, they've teamed up with some pretty nasty demons of the present, including a very determined Chief of Police whose top detective has Sam caught in the crosshairs. Part-time carpenter, full-time drinker and co-conspirator with an existential mutt named Eddie Van Halen, Sam tries to lead the simple life. But as always, fate intervenes, this time in the form of Robbie Milhouser, local builder and blundering bully who shares at least one thing with Sam -- an irresistible attraction to the beautiful Amanda Anselma. Peel back the glitz and glory of the fabled Hamptons and you'll find a beautiful place filled with ugly secrets. This is Sam Acquillo's world. Moving effortlessly across the social divide with wry pal Jackie Swaitkowski and rich guy Burton Lewis, the ex-boxer, ex-corporate infighter seems doomed to straddle the thin red line between envy and love, hate and forgiveness, goodness and greed. And sometimes life and death. Only this time, the life at stake is his own.

Arthur Cathcart and Natsumi Fitzgerald wanted to believe they were free of the nearly invisible, malignant forces they had pursued, and been pursued by, across the globe. The tech-freak researcher and blackjack-dealing psychologist convinced themselves that life on a sailboat in the Caribbean, incognito and in love, could be a lasting refuge. The death of that illusion was as brutal as it was abrupt. And so it is that Arthur and Natsumi take to the fight.

After one of Southampton real estate lawyer Jackie Swaitkowski's clients attempts to evict his sister-in-law from his own home, he turns up dead, and Jackie finds herself working on something more dangerous than real estate.

The New York Times Book Review Sunday, June 4, 2006 CRIME / Marilyn Stasio (Recommended Summer Reading) Beaches are good places for brooding, you’ll have noticed, and Sam Acquillo, the protagonist pf Chris Knopf’s TWO TIME (Permanent Press, $26), 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.

Market researcher Arthur Cathcart searches for clues to the actions of his murdered wife, Florencia Etxarte, and the secrets that died with her. Aided by girlfriend Natsumi Fitzgerald, Cathcart plays a series of cat-and-mouse games, both cerebral and physical, as he strives to stay a step ahead of mysterious pursuers who are all linked to Florencia's Basque heritage

"As Sam Acquillo tells us in the early pages of Back Lash, 'Not everyone gets to live their adult lives orbiting a central mystery.' But that's how it s been for Sam, for whom a single, horrific event has helped define his entire existence. Now that event has reached out from the deep past, an unwanted visitor, with secrets within secrets he's forced to unpack like a Russian doll, each more ominous than the one before. What is revealed would be disturbing enough if it wasn't so personal. Not a welcome development for a man who also once said, 'Avoidance, rationalization, and denial are highly underrated coping strategies'. The action moves from Southampton to the Bronx, where Sam once prowled in the part-time care of his father, owner of a truck repair business and a temper that stood out even on the mean streets of the city. It's here that Sam learns that evil history doesn't only repeat itself, it can improve upon the original product. That no matter how things change, the world of cops and criminals, priests, power brokers, wise guys, and even wiser old bartenders stays the same. Or gets much, much worse." -- Amazon.com.

Sam Acquillo is at the end of the line. A middle-aged corporate dropout living in his dead parents ramshackle cottage in the Hamptons, Sam has abandoned his friends, family and a big-time career to sit on his porch, drink vodka and stare at the Little Peconic Bay. But when the old lady next door ends up floating dead in her bathtub it seems like Sam is the only one who wonders why. Burned-out, busted up and cynical, the ex-engineer, ex-professional boxer, ex-loving father and husband finds himself uncovering secrets no one could have imagined, least of all Sam himself. Meanwhile, a procession of quirky characters intrudes on Sam's misanthropic ways. A beautiful banker, pot-smoking lawyer, bug-eyed fisherman and gay billionaire join a full complement of cops, thugs and local luminaries in this tale of money and murder.

Pulled by a murder case back into the heart of her late husband's eccentric family during a harrowing Hamptons winter, Jackie Swaitkowski finds her principles of right and wrong challenged by criminal intrigues, a romantic prospect, organized crime, and digital wizardry.

A sudden storm drives Sam, Amanda, and their sailboat into harbor at Fishers Island. The owner of the Black Swan, a small hotel, reluctantly gives them lodging. When a fellow lodger dies in circumstances that suggest a killer in their midst, Sam must ferret out the corporate secrets behind the murder.

When a colleague in the building trades is arrested for murder, it will take both Sam Acquillo and defense attorney Jackie Swaitkowski to defend the defenseless.

It's bad enough when someone you know is brutally murdered, it's worse when the guy was a paranoid schizophrenic helplessly bound to a wheelchair. Sam Acquillo and Jackie Swaitkowski tried to look after Alfie Aldergreen, as had others around the Village of Southampton, but now they were forced to wonder, what else could they have done? One thing is for certain, Alfie's killers are about to know what it means to murder a friend of Sam, former corporate troubleshooter, former professional boxer and all-around ornery bull dog, and Jackie, a defense lawyer often described as an avenging angel. This sixth installment in the Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery series brings back Knopf's ensemble of famously eccentric and involving characters, not the least of which is Sam's mutt Eddie Van Halen. Not just a crime story, it examines the fraught intersection of wealth, culture, politics and the ravages of an ugly war. Combine beautiful watery settings with a unique look into the underbelly of the Hamptons, it's a mystery you won't find anywhere else.