Ice Cap

March 26, 2012
At the start of Knopf’s breezy third Southampton mystery featuring defense attorney Jackie Swaitkowski (after 2011’s Bad Bird), client Franco Raffini summons Jackie during a winter storm to the house of Tad Buczek, a relative of hers by marriage, who’s lying dead under a pergola. That Franco, previously convicted of manslaughter, admits he messed up the crime scene by moving the body only adds to Jackie’s doubts about his innocence. When Franco is arrested and charged with second-degree murder, Jackie is determined to win the case against her client, despite threats from a couple of toughs for her to lose it. A familiar cast aids her, including boyfriend Harry Goodlander, Sam Acquillo (the star of Black Swan and four other mysteries), and computer geek Randall Dodge. A host of Polish relatives (by marriage) and Tad’s imported wife, Katarzina, provide comedy and tragedy. Atrocious winter weather, Franco’s aversion to telling all, and Tad’s deep secrets keep the outcome in doubt. Whether Jackie or Sam takes the lead, Knopf’s ensemble mysteries are good entertainment.

May 1, 2012
Called out in the middle of an epic snowstorm by a client who did three years for killing his paramour's husband, Hamptons attorney Jackie Swaitkowski (Bad Bird, 2010, etc.) finds every indication that he's done it again. Of course, Franklin Delano Raffini hasn't punctured Donald Pritz's heart once more with a skewer. Don's been dead and buried, and his widow Eliz has been enjoying a $7.5 million insurance windfall, for even longer than Franco was in prison for killing him. No, the new corpse is Tad Buczek, the eccentric heir (is there any other kind in the Hamptons?) who infuriated his staid neighbors when he bulldozed his homestead to create Metal Madness, an attraction featuring misshapen hunks of metal. Franco's already ticked off police detective Joe Sullivan by inexplicably dragging Tad's corpse away from the place where he was killed, further degrading the world's snowiest crime scene. The news that he was keeping company with Katarzina Buczek, the metal maven's much younger mail-order bride, seems to be his one-way ticket back to stir. But Jackie, undaunted, takes her client's arrest as no more than a challenge to poke around among Tad's nearest and dearest, who just happen to be her late husband Pete's relatives: Paulina Swaitkowski, Pete's mother and Tad's sister; Salina Lumsden, Pete's aunt, the housekeeper of Tad's crazy home; and Salina's husband, Freddy, his handyman. With such nutty suspects to choose from, it's a cinch that Jackie will crack the case as soon as she dodges the goons scrap-metal magnate Ivor Fleming has sent to dog her steps and Roger Angstrom, the New York Times crime reporter determined to write a story about her. More disciplined than Jackie's wild first two cases, though that's not saying much. A treat for readers who enjoy the journey more than the destination.

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May 1, 2012
It's winter in the Hamptons, and it's a doozy. But the worst snowstorm on record doesn't mean an end to crime, and defense attorney Jackie Swaitkowski is called out during the height of the blizzard. The reclusive uncle of her ex-husband is found dead in the snow by her client Franco Raffinni, who tended the uncle's property and who has already served time for manslaughter. All fingers point to Franco, of course, especially when it's revealed that he had relations with the deceased's widow. But Jackie knows what Franco has to lose better than anyone else, and she doesn't see him as the killer. Spun off the hilarious Sam Acquillo mystery series, this one looks to be equally entertaining. Jackie is spunky but cynical with just a touch of sentimentality to make her lovable. The Hamptons might be frozen over, but the action is hot, hot, hot.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)