Black Swan, Chris Knopf
Black Swan, Chris Knopf
List: $16.95 | Sale: $11.87
Club: $8.47

Black Swan
A Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery

Author: Chris Knopf

Narrator: Keith Szarabajka

Unabridged: 7 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/01/2011


Synopsis

Sailing back from Maine, Sam Acquillo, his girlfriend, Amanda Anselma, and screwball mutt Eddie Van Halen get blown off course by a dangerous gale. With damaged boat and frayed nerves, they limp into the closest harbor, which happens to be on Fishers Island, New York, a distant and altogether disassociated scrap of Long Island. A summer preserve for the oldest old money in America, it is defended by yearround denizens who safeguard their islands insularity with xenophobic fervor. Sam and Amanda are hardly welcomed with open arms, unless theyre the arms of the young and beautiful Anika Fey, daughter of the owner of the Black Swan, the islands only hotel, whos only too eager to fold Sam into her embrace. But feminine wiles arent the only hazard faced by Sam and Amanda. Theyre soon swept up in bigmoney intrigue, dark conspiracy, brutality, murder, and the machinations of hightech millionaires, to say nothing of the autumn storms that lash the island with wind and wave. In the years since losing everything, Sam has fought his way back to an existence that even he believes is worth preserving. And now, bad timing and a broken rudder could result in the greatest loss of allhis life.

About Chris Knopf

Chris Knopf’s mystery novels have received exceptional awards and accolades, with critics likening his character Sam Aquillo to Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade, Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, and Robert B. Parker’s Spenser, while repeatedly comparing Knopf’s work to that of Elmore Leonard, John D. MacDonald, and Ross Macdonald. Two Time was one of thirteen mysteries listed as recommended summer reading in the New York Times Book Review, and Publishers Weekly chose it as one of the “Best 100 Books for 2006.” Head Wounds won the 2008 Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Mystery. Dead Anyway was listed on the 2012 Best Fiction lists of both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. Knopf is a sailor, cabinetmaker, and advertising executive in Connecticut. He and his wife Mary also spend considerable time at their Long Island home in Southampton.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Debbie

This is my first endeavor into the world of Sam Acquillo, the fifth novel in a series centered in the Hamptons. This novel skirts from the Hamptons and has Sam and Amanda battling the elements on a sailboat journey from Maine to the Hamptons. Knopf spends over half the novel detailing all the nautic......more

Goodreads review by Theda

If you love storms as much as I do, you will love this book. The storms frame the action, with the intensity and complexity of the plot paralleling the weather. The story takes place on Fisher Island which – depending on the weather - is alternately open to or closed to help, or danger, from the out......more