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.

Head Wounds

Literature & Fiction

Knopf, Chris

World Literature

Random House Canada

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. From the Hardcover edition.

Vintage Canada

Chris Knopf has been praised for his humour and broad knowledge of Hamptons life. Now, in this new series, he brings a smart-aleck Southampton attorney to centre stage. A Vintage Canada trade paperback original.Jackie Swaitkowski's business relies on the constant movement of the Hamptons' real estate market. After making an odd request to evict his sister-in-law from his home, one of Jackie's clients turns up dead. Jackie would have expected that to be the end of it, but an envelope found on the corpse contains an item so unusual that Jackie finds herself working on something bigger €” and more dangerous €” than real estate.

Short Squeeze

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Wisecracking Southampton attorney Jackie Swaitkowski returns in another riveting mystery that brings to life an eccentric cast of characters and the darker side of the Hamptons. Just before Eugenie Conklin's plane took a nosedive, she tossed out a camera case that held an unusual set of photos. Witness to the accident, Jackie Swaitkowski immediately becomes embroiled in the mystery surrounding the pilot's death, and sets out to connect the seemingly disparate photos of people and places to Eugenie's past. Jackie soon learns that finding out what really happened to Eugenie Conklin will mean uncovering some of her own family secrets - and putting herself in the path of danger. With its sizzling humour, punchy dialogue and fascinating portrayal of Hamptons life, Chris Knopf's second instalment in the Jackie Swaitkowski series does not disappoint.

Bad Bird

In this, the fourth installment in the Sam Acquillo series, Sam’s past reaches out to pull him back into the world of big money and even bigger egos, where the term “corporate intrigue” is redundant and ambition the only virtue. It seems a woman vital to the private life of a very important person has gone missing in the Hamptons. And it looks like the best way to get her back is to extort the cooperation of Sam Acquillo. After finally achieving some measure of peace and contentment on Long Island, Sam is yet again an accidental player in other people’s dramas. It takes him into the world of private security goons, predatory financiers and lifestyles of young hedonists, some brave, some beautiful, all a bit lost. This time Sam has a few ambitions of his own that lead him into something all his battles in the ring and corporate boardrooms could never have prepared him for.From the Hardcover edition.

Hard Stop

The outside world thinks living in the Hamptons requires a Bentley, a face-lift, and a shingle-style home the size of Buckingham Palace. The truth is a lot more complicated than that. Dig a little deeper and you're as likely to find a saint--or a Mensa genius--as you are a deviant or certified nut job lurking right below the surface. I know this because these are my beloved clients. Meet Jackie Swaitkowski, a smart-aleck attorney whose legal turf is supposed to be the buzzing Hamptons real-estate market. But when a new client turns up dead, things take a sudden and decidedly dangerous turn. In a client's pocket is an envelope that contains a shocking piece of evidence that suggests that the death was anything but an accident. Jackie has bigger fish to fry--like her old flame Harry's surprise return to town--until a late-night car chase changes her priorities. Now she has every reason to believe that the next name on the killer's list is her own. Chris Knopf has been praised for his quick-witted writing and broad knowledge of the highs and lows of Hamptons life, and his books have been included on best-of-the-year lists complied by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and others. Now, in Short Squeeze, he brings an irresistible new heroine to center stage.

Short Squeeze: A Mystery

Humor & Satire

Minotaur Books

Jackie Swaitkowski may not be the most buttoned-up lawyer in the Hamptons, but a plane crash before her very eyes is hard to miss. Just before the struggling air taxi takes a nosedive, its female pilot tosses out a camera case. To Jackie, the accident’s only witness, the case (so to speak) seems meant for her.
The camera's memory card holds an unusual set of photos. Jackie recognizes more than a few of the faces in those pictures. Are they telling her the story of the crash? The pilot, a hard-nosed biker chick named Eugenie Birkson, came from a family tree filled with ex-cons, and boasted a passenger list packed with high society. And Jackie soon learns that solving the mystery of Eugenie’s death will mean uncovering some dark secrets from her own past as well. 
All this and a freshly revived romance with gentle giant Harry Goodlander, and Jackie yet again has her heart and her hands full. 
Award-winning mystery writer Chris Knopf returns to Southampton, a one-of-a-kind small town where the rich and the rest of us rub shoulders on a daily basis, generating all the frictions that might imply.

Bad Bird: A Mystery (Jackie Swaitkowski Mysteries)

The Last Refuge

Available in Canada for the first time – a compelling debut from a fresh new voice in crime fiction.Sam Acquillo’s 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.

Sam Aquillo – ex-boxer, ex-corporate executive and accidental hero of The Last Refuge – is back in this action-packed, page-turning sequel. All Sam wants to do is hammer a few nails into his ramshackle cottage, drink a great deal of vodka, hang out with his dog, Eddie, and stay out of trouble. But trouble seems to find him anyway. When a car bomb outside a trendy waterfront restaurant kills a prominent financial consultant and injures Sam and his lawyer friend Jackie Swaitkowski, he is drawn into the investigation. Where the police have met roadblocks, Sam makes inroads with his trademark wit, instinct and charm. Also, he just wants to know: Why would someone go to such lengths not only to kill someone, but annihilate them? Set, once again, against the backdrop of Southhampton, Long Island, Two Time is full of moody sunsets, beachfront properties and beautiful people with an extraordinary amount of money and very dangerous secrets.

Two Time

Sam Aquillo – ex-boxer, ex-corporate executive and accidental hero of The Last Refuge – is back in this action-packed, page-turning sequel.All Sam wants to do is hammer a few nails into his ramshackle cottage, drink a great deal of vodka, hang out with his dog, Eddie, and stay out of trouble. But trouble seems to find him anyway. When a car bomb outside a trendy waterfront restaurant kills a prominent financial consultant and injures Sam and his lawyer friend Jackie Swaitkowski, he is drawn into the investigation. Where the police have met roadblocks, Sam makes inroads with his trademark wit, instinct and charm. Also, he just wants to know: Why would someone go to such lengths not only to kill someone, but annihilate them? Set, once again, against the backdrop of Southhampton, Long Island, Two Time is full of moody sunsets, beachfront properties and beautiful people with an extraordinary amount of money and very dangerous secrets.From the Hardcover edition.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Knopf, Chris. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Knopf, Chris

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Knopf, Chris. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Head Wounds

Head Wounds

Short Squeeze

Bad Bird

Hard Stop

Short Squeeze: A Mystery

Bad Bird: A Mystery (Jackie Swaitkowski Mysteries)

The Last Refuge

Two Time

Two Time