Bibliography:
Knopf, Chris. 2005. The Last Refuge: A Tale of Money and Murder in the Hamptons. Sag Harbor, New York: Permanent Press. ISBN: 1-57962-118-X
I find many books that I might want to read by reading reviews. Even before I was the fiction librarian, I devoured huge amounts of fiction and mystery reviews every month. When I left the public library world, I suffered withdrawal and tried to figure out how to convince my new employer that yes, we really did need a subscription to Publisher’s Weekly or Booklist, two of my favorite places to find out about mysteries.
Booklist is where I first read about Sam Acquillo in a starred review, no less. Sam Acquillo has dropped out of life. Leaving his high paying, high stress job and high maintenance wife behind, he is living in an old family cottage in the Hamptons, slowly drinking himself to death. Occaisionally he goes to a nearby bar or over to her elderly neighbor’s to help her with odd jobs. One day he sense that things are not quite right next door, and when he goes to investigate, he find an overwhelming smell and a dead body. The police brush the death off, how unusual is it for old people to die? They do convince Sam to take over as the executor of her estate, and in the process of tidying up the old woman’s affairs, Sam starts to sense that her death was by no means natural.
Part of the genius of Knopf’s books are his pace, tone and characters. This is not a thrill a minute full speed ahead catch your breath kind of story. Rather in places the plot even might seem to slow down or meander through side streets. Only later does the reader realize that Knopf had laid the groundwork for the solution by hiding it in plain sight. The tone is hard to describe, saracastic and down but bitingly funny in places. I love the fact that the subtitle makes this sound like a true crime tale. The characters are quirky at times, but so well drawn that they never feel fake or cartoonish, and they often have complicated and complex relationships with one another. I have also read Two Time, the second in the series, and I enjoyed it just as much if not more. It does seem to amp up the suspense just a little. Yet another mystery series that does not get the recognition and readers it deserves because it is hard to pigeon hole or classify.
