Head Wounds [Hardcover]

Chris Knopf (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2008

Sam Acquillo can hide in his windswept waterfront cottage all he wants. 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 cross hairs.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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Ex-boxer and former corporate exec Sam Acquillo, now a hard-drinking carpenter living in a run-down cottage on the shores of the Little Peconic Bay in Southampton, N.Y., becomes the prime suspect in the murder of local builder Robbie Milhouser in Knopf's superb third Hamptons mystery (after Two Time and The Last Refuge). With the evidence against him almost overwhelming, Acquillo enlists a misfit group of supporters to help him uncover the real killer's identity. As he digs into the dead man's troubled past, Acquillo discovers a disturbing link between Milhouser and Acquillo's current girlfriend, Amanda Battiston. Knopf excels in describing the rustic underpinnings of Long Island's east end, especially its vast array of eccentric characters. Brisk pacing and sharp dialogue carry the reader along, but it's the endearing and deeply flawed Acquillo that's the heart and soul of this exceptional series. How can you go wrong with a philosophizing hero who drinks Absolut, reads Kant, drives a '67 Grand Prix and has a dog named Eddie Van Halen? (May)
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From Booklist

Sam Acquillo—ex-boxer, ex-husband, and now an Absolut-drinking construction worker on the east end of the Hamptons—shouldn’t be mixing it up with the likes of Robbie Milhouser, a local bully who flirts a bit too much with Sam’s flame, Amanda Anselma. After all, his doctors have told him that another head wound is the last thing he needs. Just as a brawl seems to be in the offing, Robbie up and dies, and Sam seems to be holding the smoking gun—that is, in this case, a staple gun that easily traces back to him. Sam, who also has some amateur sleuthing on his résumé (The Last Refuge, 2005),  puts his sharp mind and caustic wit to use in tracking back how the unfortunate Robbie met his demise. The Hamptons setting provides much of the appeal here, but it’s not the Polo-playing side of the island we see but, rather, the seamier underside (yes, even the Hamptons have an underside). Slow-starting Sam makes the perfect antihero for our guided tour of the wrong side of the tracks. Another satisfying entry in an endearing series. --Mary Frances Wilkens

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: The Permanent Press; First Edition edition (May 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579621651
• ISBN-13: 978-1579621650
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #843,641 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A THINKING MAN'S (OR WOMAN'S) THRILLER, June 6, 2008

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Head Wounds (Hardcover)

Pull up an easy chair, light the lamp, and prepare to enter the world of Sam Acquillo. If you're a first time reader of this series, you'll soon discover it's a very strange world, which befits Sam as he's a unique guy.

A former successful white collar worker and boxer, Sam is now a carpenter keeping vodka in his glass by working on pricey houses which are dotting the shoreline of Jacob's Neck and Oak Point. He lives in a cottage on the waterfront, often hangs out in Southhampton Village, and his best pal is his dog, Eddie Van Halen. His marraige ended in an acrimonious divorce, he and his daughter are all but estranged., and he's presently involved in an off again - on again romance with the beauteous Amanda who inherited a great deal of the land on which said expensive homes are being built.

Sound as if Sam's in a downward spiral? Apparently so but the twists and turns make fascinating reading, especially when accompanied by Chris Knopf's painterly descriptions, and fully imagined characters. Sam is a puzzling protagonist, an affecting fellow for whom we keep rooting.

First off, we wonder how he ever came to this - chief suspect in a murder case. Sam's super intelligent, has an MIT degree, uses four or five syllable words properly, freely, and reads Kant. But, here he is with Robbie Milhouser quite dead after several head blows from Sam's heavy construction stapler. Plus, a few folks witnessed a recent brawl between the two men.

The rather complex plot involves finding out who the real killer is, which is done primarily by following Sam's thought processes. And, that is sometimes perplexing, often amusing, and always compelling. In the quest to vindicate Sam there is, of course, a little help from his friends. For this reader, chief among those pals is the libidinous Southhampton High School psychologist, Rosaline Arnold. "On first meeting few realized how attractive she was, having trouble seeing past her nose. A big nose. Big enough to challenge the powers of exaggeration." How can you not like Rosaline?

Fact is, how could you not like Head Wounds? It has it all - pleasureful prose, sustained suspense, and the hope that there's more to come from the ever surprising Sam.

- Gail Cooke

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun With System Failures, June 10, 2008

By 

James Rounds - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Head Wounds (Hardcover)

The self-help website "How Stuff Works" exists to explain the dynamics of physical systems to the non-engineers among us. It's mirror-image Evil Twin website, "How Stuff Breaks Down", could be said to be at the epicenter of every one of Chris Knopf's Hampton Murder mysteries, including the sublime new "HEAD WOUNDS". This time out Sam's own head is on the block, and the bizarre rabbit warren of clues and evidence interspersed with juicy (juiced?) philosophizing makes for a great read, especially if you're a fan of Robert B. Parker and Lee Child.

Before the deluge, Sam Acquillo was a highly-paid systems analyst for a petrochemical company, the guy you call in an emergency to figure out what's preventing a billion-dollar system from doing what it's supposed to do. High stakes, high stress, high pay, all of it. Suffice it to say, he flames out dramatically, in high style. Imagine yourself with marriage and job on the rocks, a leftover company credit card and car, limitless time and vodka on your hands. Ah, the possibilities. Understand, this is just the background reel, separate from the actual plot of "HEAD WOUNDS", though it informs the main character's motivations in important ways. This is fun stuff, folks.

Forget everything you know and believe in, is the order of the day. The center cannot hold, because the wheel's out of round. So, drink more vodka, read Kant, and run it all by the dog, named Eddie Van Halen. There's not much holding Sam Acquillo together these days:

"I can't do it again", I said finally to Eddie. "For any reason."
I didn't like to think of myself as a middle-aged guy who sat drinking alone in the dark, talking to his dog about his fears and uncertainties. But I'd been doing that to Eddie since saving him from the pound, so he must have assumed listening to a bunch of worthless crap was part of his daily work product.
"I can't do it", I repeated.
All he did was look at me over the crumbled remains of his biscuit. I let it stand at that and finished my drink; then one or two more to be on the safe side, before letting the encyclopedia of irresolvable quanderies that continually cycled through my consciousness shift into a dream state, thereby maintaining the continuity of torment from wakefulness to sleep.

Are you beginning to dig this guy? The real fun starts when he applies his tortured but estimable problem-solving skills to his own survival, which involves a frame-up for a murder inside his community in the Hamptons. Along for the ride are a gaggle of locals, all wonderfully real flesh and blood. Knopf's specialty is intelligent, beautiful and conflicted women, which makes for some great dialogue. My one limited beef is that some of the exchanges go on one or two witticisms too long, sort of like selling past the close. But no matter; this is excellent, to-the-bone writing. In many ways, Sam Acquillo's performing the same elite specialized function as when he was in the corporate wars: he's isolating system failures - human now instead of mechanical - with limited time and resources, before the world blows up. Only now he's doing it without a salary, perks or yearly bonus. Go buy the book and see how he pulls it off.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fantastic!, May 27, 2008

By 

Thrills N. Kills "Sean H." (Austin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Head Wounds (Hardcover)

Really enjoyed this one - the main selling point is Knopf's protagonist Sam Acquillo, who plays hard-boiled without being a ripoff of other hard-boiled mystery characters. He's an ex-boxer who after becoming the prime suspect in a murder, rounds up his own posse to solve the crime. Knopf has a real knack for detailing a world that many of us wouldn't know much about - the Hamptons, which apparently are kind of nasty and bizarre. Whipcrack dialogue and pacing kept my pages turning, and I've already ordered two other Knopf titles to get more. It reminded me a bit of a new Adam Gittlin book called The Deal that had a similar protagonist, albeit in a completely different setting.