Back Lash (Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mysteries) - Hardcover

Back Lash is Chris Knopf's thirteenth mystery/thriller and seventh in the Sam Acquillo Mystery Series. The Last Refuge (2005) was a finalist for The Connecticut Book Award. In 2007, Two Time was one of thirteen mysteries listed in Marilyn Stasio's "Recommended Summer Reading" column in the New York Times Book Review. Head Wounds was cited as one of the best mysteries of the year in 2008 by both Mysterious Reviews and Deadly Pleasures, and won the 2008 Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Mystery. His thriller series featuring off-the-grid sleuth Arthur Cathcart began with Dead Anyway, which received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus and Library Journal. It was named one of The Best Crime Novels of 2012 by the Boston Globe and won the 2013 Nero Award. The sequels, Cries of the Lost and A Billion Ways To Die, were released in 2013 and 2014.

"Forty years ago, Sam Acquillo's father, Andre--a skilled French Canadian mechanic with a short fuse who sometimes terrorized his family--was beaten to death by two men in a bar in the Bronx. Now, decades later, the best witness to the still unsolved murder, the nearly 90-year-old bartender, wants to talk to Sam. Before he knows it, executive-turned-cabinetmaker Sam is chasing a cold case he didn t think he cared about and pursuing decades-old Mob connections...This particular one becomes more interesting as attempts are made on Sam's life, showing that someone clearly doesn't want his father's murder solved. Knopf has a way with prose and plotting, as well as a knack for creating a range of full-bodied characters, and that combination makes this seventh in the Sam Acquillo series a true pleasure for mainstream crime-fiction readers." --Booklist, Starred Reveiw

"Nicely plotted....Sam's backstory adds depth to an already strong character."--Publishers Weekly

"By the final revelation, Sam Acquillo has discovered so much more about his family than he ever cared to know. Though Knopf keeps the pot steadily simmering, this seventh case is more notable for its human relationships than its whodunit." --Kirkus Reviews

"It's not necessary to have read the earlier Sam Acquillo books but for those who have, there's extra pleasure in watching Knopf ingeniously work in exposition. Knopf is particularly good creating secondary characters with distinct idiosyncrasies, and in unobtrusively inserting paragraph summaries when the plot gets complicated. Most of all, though, he's good letting Sam make observations, such as "Athletic wear on older people often makes them look older than they really are." Another is Sam's musing that we emerge from childhood "without entirely leaving the child behind" and then "succumb to a selective gravitational pull, unwittingly, irresistibly, irretrievably" by finding ourselves attracted to others with similar experiences. Or not, as Newton observed about the dynamics of attraction and repulsion. As Sam tells a colleague, he became an engineer because "he likes to fix things. Asserting human intellect over the forces of entropy. Finding and realigning anomalies and malfunction. Ordering chaos." As much might be said for an intelligent author who knows how to keep us entertained while flattering our intelligence." --NPR, Joan Baum