Short Squeeze

November 2, 2009
Lawyer Jackie Swaitkowski, Sam Acquillo's friend, turns a brief contact with client Sergey Pontecello into a personal crusade in Knopf's entertaining fifth mystery set in the Hamptons (after 2009's Hard Stop
). Hapless Sergey, whose battered body turns up one night in a Sagaponack street shortly after he retains Jackie, was involved in an unequal battle with his sister-in-law, Eunice Wolsonowicz, over the house he and his wife, Elizabeth, shared until her death. Eunice and Elizabeth's family tree contains some pretty twisted limbs, and Jackie, who has limited respect for the speed of the law, presses her own investigation even after someone runs her off the road. Readers should be prepared for some shocks as body parts from an old hit-and-run victim occasionally pop up. While Knopf offers a vivid setting, sharp characterizations and devious plotting, Jackie's starring role doesn't entirely compensate for the bit part played by Sam, hitherto the series' lead character.

November 15, 2009
Pot-smoking Jackie Swaitkowski, attorney to sleuthing Southampton carpenter Sam Acquillo (Hard Stop, 2009, etc,), gets a wild, wacky case of her own.

Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, but few can rival Sergey Pontecello, his sister-in-law Eunice Wolsonowicz, and her daughter Wendy and adopted son Oscar, aka Fuzzy. His late wife's sister has taken up residence in his home and won't budge, Sergey tells Jackie; he wants to evict her. In a subsequent late-night phone call, he complains that Eunice has now locked him out of the master bathroom. Jackie soothes her client only to learn the next day that he's been found dead,"pretty chewed up," as Southampton Town cop Joe Sullivan puts it. In one pocket Pontecello is carrying Jackie's business card, in another a severed nipple that turns out to have been the property of Edna Jackery, a scuba-shop bookkeeper and hit-and-run victim whose body parts have a disconcerting way of escaping the ministrations of family mortician Alden Winthrop III and his son Denny. Clearly, Watson, these are deep waters, and although no case that kicks off with this kind of a bang can possibly maintain such a sublime level of invention, Knopf does his best to keep his motor-mouthed heroine from stealing the show.

All in vain. Manic Jackie may have a law degree and a place in the Hamptons, but she's still worthy kin to her more downscale Trenton sister Stephanie Plum.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from December 15, 2009
Southampton attorney Jackie Swaitkowski, a supporting character in Knopf's Sam Acquillo series ("Head Wound, Two Time"), takes center stage in this series debut as she is hired to help a man resolve an unpleasant domestic situation. His sister-in-law has moved into and taken over his house, convinced she's the owner because she loaned her late sister money. But the case is not as simple as it appears. Jackie's client is fatally run down, and when she's hired to settle his estate, things turn really ugly as it becomes clear to the killer that Jackie is no pushover. VERDICT Readers, fasten your seatbelts for a roller-coaster ride as Knopf's intelligent, savvy protagonist works her wiles solving whodunit and why. [Library marketing.]

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2009
Guilt can be a powerful motivator. After lawyer Jackie Swaitkowski ignores a call from pesky client Sergey Pontecello, who is found dead hours later, she becomes obsessed with determining how the recently widowed man died. Eventually, her investigation turns up a tangled mess of strange financial transactions, dysfunctional family relationships, a fatal hit-and-run, mysterious body parts, and an extortion plotnot to mention that Jackie herself is threatened with disbarment by various bigwigs who prefer to leave the dirt under the carpet. Shes aided by her best friend, engineer turned carpenter Sam Acquillo, and her ex-boyfriend Harry Goodlander, but its Jackie, persistent to the point of bullheadedness, who sweeps up the dirt and puts the pieces together. This spin-off features the same vividly evoked Hamptons setting and the same crisp prose, brisk plotting, and sharp dialogue as Knopfs critically acclaimed Sam Acquillo series, but here center stage switches from ex-boxer and construction worker Acquillo to a resolute first-person female protagonist who was widowed in her twenties but likes living alone just fine. More engaging hard-boiled crime fiction from a rising star.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)