Customer Reviews

The Last Refuge

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Last Refuge is a great read. Once I got started, this was in the "couldn't put down" category. Knopf's hero, Sam Acguillo, is quirky enough to be truly engaging and believable enough to push the story as it develops. And I have to admit I found his lifestyle oddly appealing, if not how he got there. In truth, the lawyers Knopf paints are every bit as entertaining.

The mystery itself has a good, if complex, underpinning, with history and motive I assume are not entirely alien to the real world Hamptons. The engineering know-how that winds through the book provokes some interesting thoughts about attempting the perfect crime. And what hero-lead mystery would be complete without the potential for dashing the plutonic relationships?

The Last Refuge accelerates at a good pace as Sam scrambles to settle the debts before returning (one hopes) to his foggy, languid state. I may never order another vodka with anything but ice.

Great stuff! How long till the next Acquillo story?

Clearly a fan of the hard-boiled noir detective fiction of writers like Dashiell Hammett Raymond Chandler, and Ross MacDonald, Chris Knopf updates the genre with a tale of modern murder in the salty, sandy, money-drenched Hamptons.

Sam Acquillo, a burned-out corporate v.p. and engineer, has dumped his job and his wife and retired to drink and brood in the small cottage his father built in the 1940s in a working class enclave along the Little Peconic Bay. It's 2000, and "a neighborhood like this, in a place like this, is a little like a guy in a cheap suit accidentally invited to a gallery opening."

Sam sits on his porch staring out at the bay, drinking vodka, smoking filtered Camels and talking to his dog. But when he discovers the body of his neighbor, a mean old lady universally disliked, something stirs. Maybe it's the engineer in him noticing things that don't quite fit. He volunteers to administer her meager estate, a job no one else wants, and soon makes himself enough of a nuisance to land in the hospital, concussed.

An amateur boxer who keeps himself in shape and is not averse to physical contact (taking after his father who was beaten to death in a barroom brawl), Sam gives the police no help in finding his attacker and keeps on probing. Along the way he meets several smart and interesting women who seem to find him as attractive as he finds them, keeping possibilities in play, and has a few more brushes with violence, not all of them defensive.

Knopf paces this stylish debut well, revealing his narrator's complex character as he unravels the tangle of his mystery, imbuing all with a strong sense of place. Sam, though likable from the start, grows on the reader as he doggedly pursues a mystery with nothing in it for him but the satisfaction of a job well done. Though damaged and stubborn, he's a man of integrity and cautious feeling.

A part-time resident himself, Knopf also captures the feel of the Hamptons - greed drawn by natural beauty through no fault of its own, beleaguered locals edged out by rich summer people - and transports the reader to its village streets, sprawling mansions, neighborhood watering holes and spectacular vistas.

With its snappy (though occasionally overlong) dialogue, intelligent humor and strong protagonist, readers will be glad there's at least one more Acquillo novel in the works.

- The Portsmouth Herald

Chris Knopf uses a technique in "The Last Refuge" that I see from time to time some of in my favorite novels, whether they're murder mysteries or not. I've seen it in Lee Child and I've seen it in Herman Melville. It probably has a literary name, but for now I'll call it the Observational Aside. The narrative stops for a moment, usually just as something big is about to happen, and the author throws in a little treatise on some philosophical or physical subject. For instance, just before a corporate showdown, Sam Acquillo steps out of the moment and speaks directly to us, as if he were standing at the lip of the stage in a Greek tragedy, Omniscient Observer: "Embarrassment is a complicated human emotion. Probably because it's an aggregate of other emotions - shame, guilt, anger, regret - that assemble in temporary alliances to suit the particulars of the moment. It's also one of the few emotions truly scalable to large organizations."

Then the camera rolls again, the action resumes, and we pick up where we left off, with two benefits: a greater understanding and appreciation for what is about to occur, and a little shot of tension-building as a result of the interruption, like a second shot of espresso in the mix. I love that. This is a novel that uses the murder-and-mayhem form to examine the human condition, deeply and with conviction. Sam Acquillo is a guy fighting through never-ending pain, with no earthly idea why. A capable warrior without a lord, like the old Ronin samurai after the emperor was gone, wandering the countryside, looking for something to do and a reason to do it.

Buy this book, get down with Sam Acquillo, and join the rest of us in looking forward to his next challenge. Believe me, you want to root for this guy and his dog and his '67 Grand Prix.

Don't miss this exquisite novel. With all the hype about the Hamptons and all the recent misguided critiques, Marxist and otherwise, this mystery is a must read for anyone who wants the best insight into the minds and souls of those who sought redemption in a painfully beautiful place, only to be drawn into conflct and chaos. Chris Knopf is a major writer, who, like Martin Clark, came out of nowhere to knock the socks off of the famous wordsmiths who get the big review and the giant advances. Permanent Press deserves a world of credit for saving this wonderful book from the oblivion of the impenentrable mediocrity of the New York publishing world.

In the Hamptons, where Knopf is a "local", this was The Book To Read this summer. And what a refreshing one! This author doesn't just describe, he evokes - unexpected characters, a stirring sense of place and surprising twists of murder and intrigue. You can almost smell the place. I re-read many sentences for the sheer pleasure of the language and dialogue. And the action is so character-driven, the story could only occur in a world where money makes weird things happen. I totally identified with Knopf's irreverent nonconformist protagonist, Sam Aquillo. At the end of the story, you're left wanting more Sam, please. Hurry up, Chris Knopf. We're waiting.

Like a ride on a bullet train: clean prose, fascinating characters, real "who-done-it?" plot.
Knopf is a very good writer, so his protagonist Sam Aquillo is interesting (many writers do have interesting characters): funny, tough, smart, educated, a bit lazy, a bit self-indulgent - in short, he's real and likable. The other characters are great, odd-balls, Hamptons locals, cops, a smattering of Hamptons rich folks.
With great characters and a major crime (or two) to solve, this story is a joy.

The protagonist, Sam Acquillo is a 50something 'retired' engineer. I know guys like him and the character rings true. Sam is reluctantly put in the position to use his past R & D skills to solve a murder (and more!). It's an entertaining read and I will probably read the next one in the series. I will also recommend this book to an engineer friend (who I think will identify with Sam) albeit with a caveat to beware of the glaring typos and misinformation.

I can sum my opinion of this book up fairly quickly and easily. Loads of potential, with some serious holes.

Now to explain that. The book was intriguing. The plot was sound, but a little transparent. The dialog was excellent. The filler was... filler. Bad, long, drawn out, makes you want to skip a few pages filler. It actually puzzled me and made me put the book down several times and just walk away. How could somebody who writes such good dialog, make the back story and some of the side information so friggin drawn out that it makes the book drag? It is almost like it was written by two people. One who wrote a basic mystery story and all the dialog, and then a second person was supposed to come along and turn the short story into a novel... it was that second person that failed. No Red Herrings, no twists, no miscalculations, no surprises.

It was good enough for me to want to see what Sam Acquillo will be up to next, and to see how Chris Knopf develops. But, I sure wouldn't go out of my way to recommend this book to anyone.

The Book Report: Damaged systems engineer, divorced dad, and all-around working class hero Sam Acquillo retreats to his parents' old cabin in North Sea, a part of Southampton Township that us rich white folk used to call "Blackhampton", aka the working class part of New York's trendy and eternally inflating Hamptons. Sam's licking his wounds after a messy divorce from Boston/Connecticut Aryan-from-Darien Abby, and his scandalous separation from his Fortune 500 corporate employer, after beating up the revolting toady who wants to sell Sam's division to the highest bidder without regard to its consequences for the engineers he supervises.

Sam's horrible old-lady neighbor, Regina, dies; she's got no heirs, she's got no money, she doesn't even own the home she's occupied for over 50 years. And Sam, who has nothing but time on his hands, doesn't buy the manner of her death: she drowned in her bathtub. Problem is, she had severe arthritis, and used the cottage's (separate) shower. This gets Sam's problem-solving brain occupied for the first time since his divorce. And thereby hangs the tale of the first-ever Long Island Noir mystery novel. What he discovers during his nosing about the facts and the fallacies of his tiny North Sea peninsula neighborhood's past and present makes him appreciate anew the peace and solitude he left behind when he chose to become the champion of truth and justice and the populist way; he cannot go back and he doesn't want to go forward, yet he knows he must make his choice. And so he does. And nothing in North Sea can ever be the same.

My Review: Oh wow. What a fun ride! What a delight to have this book that harks back to the Dashiell Hammett "Continental Op" books! And all set here on Long Island, mah home! I loved reading the author's supple, decriptive prose; I loved the author's ability to make me invest in and care for the flawed hero main character, and I was bowled over by the clear-eyed populism of the author's presentation of the social issues plaguing the Hamptons. I have friends in East Hampton who experience the world in the same way as Sam Acquillo does. It's very exciting to see that on the page, as anyone who's read a book that "gets it right" about their home partch can tell you.

Then there's the modern dearth of real, heartfelt NOIR in fiction and movie-making. Characters who've lost everything, and so can't be scared. Situations that're based in the real concerns of real people. Problems that have no counterpart in most mysteries and thrillers, but should.

Okay. That's the upside.

Then there's the downsside. The copyediting **rots**. "Noyac Rd." in ****dialogue**** oofwince...and on the facing page, "Harbor Road." Oh now really. You can get it right on one page and not on the other? grrrrrrr

The gawawful spelling mistakes! The parallelism errors. *wince*

But in the end, well, the beauty of the book is simply in its characters and its ability to draw you into its lie-filled world. Sam, his love interest Eddie the dog, and the women who want them are deeply involving. I care about them, and I want to read more about them.

The Last Refuge is the first of a series of mysteries about Sam Acquillo by Chris Knopf. The novels are published by a small publisher, the Permanent Press, but the author has recently been signed by St. Martin's to do a spin-off series. It's neat to know that publishing small really can lead to publishing large, but I suspect it only works if you're a good writer. Chris Knopf is clearly that.

Sam Acquillo's not a particularly nice guy for a hero, not safe, not easygoing. But he already seems very real to me. I trust him. At least I think I do, though I'm sure he drinks way too much. And I like him, but I'd probably not talk to him in the coffee shop. I might watch for him to appear. I'd view him with vague suspicion over my shoulder, and wonder about his past and his motives perhaps.

The author does a good job of keeping the reader questioning. At first meeting Sam is kind of down-beat, kind of negative. The reader might wonder what on earth he does all day, why's he on his own, where does he get his money. He's kind, but he doesn't think of himself as kind. And he's really sort of abrasive. The book doesn't telescope any great answers, but dribbles them over conversation, keeping you off balance and looking for more. It's like slowly getting to know someone, getting used to their presence in the store, with the added bonus of an investigation that keeps growing into something more. Then you're glad Sam's on the case.

So now I'm off to read more, still not really knowing Sam, but truly intrigued.