Black Swan

By Chris Knopf

Sailing back from Maine, Sam Acquillo, the hero of four Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mysteries from Permanent Press, 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, NY, a distant and altogether disassociated scrap of Long Island. A summer preserve for the oldest old money in America, and defended by year-round denizens who safeguard their island's insularity with xenophobic fervor, Sam and Amanda are hardly welcomed with open arms. Unless they're the arms of the young and beautiful Anika Fey, daughter of the owner of the Black Swan, the island's only hotel, who's only too eager to fold Sam into her embrace. But feminine wiles aren't the only hazard faced by Sam and his crew. They're soon swept up in big-money intrigue, dark conspiracy, brutality, murder and the machinations of high-tech 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 all-his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Permanent Press
• Release date: May 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781579622169

Book preview

BLACK SWAN

Other titles by Chris Knopf

The Last Refuge

Two Time

Head Wounds

Hard Stop

Short Squeeze

Elysiana

Bad Bird

A SAM ACQUILLO HAMPTONS MYSTERY

CHRIS KNOPF

BLACK SWAN

The Permanent Press Sag Harbor, NY 11963

Copyright © 2011 by Chris Knopf

All rights reserved. No part of this publication, or parts thereof, may be reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotes in a review, without the written permission of the publisher.

The events and characters in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to any person, living or dead, is merely coincidental.

For information, address: The Permanent Press

4170 Noyac Road Sag Harbor, NY 11963 www.thepermanentpress.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Knopf, Chris– Black swan / Chris Knopf.

      p. cm. — (A Sam Acquillo Hamptons mystery) ISBN 978-1-57962-216-9 (alk. paper)

1. Acquillo, Sam (Fictitious character)—Fiction.

2. Sailing—Fiction. 3. Hotels—Fiction. 4. Fishers Island (N.Y. : Island)—Fiction. I. Title. II. Series.

PS3611.N66B57 2011

813'.6—dc22 2011003132

Printed in the United States of America.

For the late Samuel Beckett Farrell,

Wheaten extraordinaire,

who gave me Eddie in whole cloth.

No strings attached.

Acknowledgements

In the without whom this would not be possible category, thanks to Tim Hannon, my friend of fifty-five years and colorful native guide to Fishers Island. Thanks to Kip Wiley for nautical knowledge and Cindy Courtney for legal language and general counsel. Special thanks to the software development demons at Mintz & Hoke: John Yeager, Don Ross, Michael Perry, Andy Turon and Mark Bonet. High fives to keen-eyed and thoughtful readers Bob Willemin, Sean Cronin and Randy Costello. Eternal gratitude to Judy Shepard, with the best editorial mind in the land (along with Marty, her co-conspirator).

    As always, Anne-Marie Regish for logistical support and Mary Farrell, who has come to regard her husband's conversations with imaginary people as perfectly natural.

7

Chapter 

1

I tell myself the same thing when I climb a tall ladder. Don't look down.

    But I did anyway, looking over the starboard side of the sailboat as we sped up the side of a particularly steep wave. The distance from the cockpit to the bottom of the trough looked impossibly vast and untraversable. I jerked the wheel up into the incline of the wave and held on. The bow shot into the air, then drifted almost languidly down the other side, mocking my initial alarm, until the force of the next wave snatched up the stern and shoved the Carpe Mañana into another furious wall of water.

    Only an immediate spin of the wheel to port saved us from broaching, though we hit the wave hard enough to cover the boat from bow to dodger—the canvas and plastic windscreen protecting the cockpit—in foamy green water.

    With typical understatement, the nautical term for this kind of wave action is 'confused.' I'd have called it enraged, or maybe psychotic.

    That was interesting, Amanda yelled up from below.

    That's nothing, I yelled back. We're just getting started.

9

10 BLACK SWAN

    She hoisted herself up the stairs that led down to the boat's living quarters. She wore brilliant orange foul-weather clothing that did nothing for her slim, winsome figure.

    I reached around the wheel and clipped a tether to her inflatable harness, then gently shoved her down into the cockpit.

    So this is a milk run, said Amanda, as she wedged herself against the bulkhead. What's a storm like?

    Okay, NOAA got it wrong. Sometimes they do, I shouted through a spray of saltwater. October's a tricky time of year.

    NOAA, short for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (as if you could administer the oceans and atmosphere), the source of all weather forecasting, had a dirty little secret: it rarely had a clue what was happening on Long Island Sound until it was already happening, and not always then, which meant a lot less prediction than reportage.

    You've become a NOAA apologist.

    If we live through this, I'll write a disappointed letter, I said.

    I thought you said sailboats can't sink.

    Hold that thought.

    I'd told her it's really hard to sink a sailboat, but not impossible. You need just the right combination of circumstances—lots of wind, sharp wave angle, a lousy boat and a lousier helmsman. The boat felt solid and responsive, which didn't surprise me, handpicked as it was by my friend Burton Lewis, who knew boats like mothers knew their kids. The helmsman was the only unconfirmed variable, and though I'd had my share of sloppy water and crappy weather, this was something different.

    Amanda snatched the handheld two-way VHF radio out of its cradle and started working the controls. I adjusted my purchase on the molded teak slats that secured my butt and turned through another set of nasty waves.

Chris Knopf 11

    The NOAA marine weather station reported, without apology, a revised forecast. The mechanized female voice said the wind had shifted to the northeast and was building to a steady thirty-five to forty knots, with gusts to sixty. Wave heights were now expected to be six to eight feet, which in my experience meant eight feet and up. The small craft advisory of the morning, when we'd set out well before dawn from Point Judith, Rhode Island, was now a somber gale force warning, insisting that whatever idiot small craft were still out on the water get the hell to the nearest port, as if we weren't desperately trying to do just that.

    For the next several hours we concentrated on our individual responsibilities. Amanda was charged with staying in the boat and trying not to shriek when the boat leaned over enough to drop the rail in the water, or when a gush of sea spray hit the dodger with the force of a fire hose.

    I was supposed to keep us from drowning. They say in a bad storm the people on board will wear out long before the boat, and I think that's true. It's hard to believe in the durability of your craft while a real storm is fully underway.

    As I put all my strength and weight into the wheel one second, and then let it whirl between my gloved hands the next, it seemed impossible that any useful end was being served by human agency, that the boat was in some conspiracy with the sea and wanted to give me only the illusion of control.

    And the water, it was everywhere: washing across the bow, blasting into the dodger, sloshing in over the transom to swirl around my feet until it drained out the scuppers on the cockpit floor. Which would have been far more bearable if it wasn't for the rain, driving in from the port bow, stinging my face and ruining my vision.

    Exhausted by her efforts to sustain both emotional balance and solid handholds, Amanda turned quiet, her beautiful face a mask of taut misery.

12 BLACK SWAN

    I began to realize much of our forward momentum involved surfing down breaking ten foot waves. I'm not much of a swimmer, but I'd done my share of bodysurfing as a kid, so a sense of how to finesse the build-up to the break, and then the turbulent, barely-controllable ride down the other side of the wave was encrypted in my memory.

    My back ached from standing and my arms complained with every spin of the wheel, but there was nothing to be done about it. All the while, I expected things to improve, but they kept getting worse. This is Fishers Island Sound, for God's sake, I said to myself. It's not the Southern Ocean. I wanted to check in with NOAA again, but knew it would mean nothing. Confirming that we were in a freak shit storm wouldn't help get us out of it.

    I threw the boat up into another sharp rise to port, only to pull her back to starboard on the way down, barely in time to avoid a boiling mass of seawater from joining us in the cockpit.

    I guess you can't just make it go in a nice straight line, said Amanda, pulling herself up off the cockpit floor where the last set of waves had tossed her.

    If only I were a better sailor.

    You have other qualities, said Amanda. Give me a moment and I'll come up with a few.

    It's that hard?

    You have an unusual dog.

    She meant Eddie, the midsized, shepherd-based mutt who was still below, blissfully knocked out with a hit of Benadryl and secured in a crew berth by a heavy piece of acrylic canvas called a lee cloth. It was a precaution brought on not by his fearing the storm, but of loving it too much. He was the same way in the car. The faster I went and more erratically I drove, the more he liked it. I felt a little bad depriving him of the fun, but I couldn't bear the constant barking demand that he come topside just to get washed overboard.

Chris Knopf 13

    Another complication was the ongoing need to check our position on the GPS. It only took a few moments in that kind of weather to lose our course, costing vital time to port, or worse, putting ourselves in even more dangerous conditions.

    In what amounted to a literal saving grace, the best angle on the wind also put us on a straight line directly into West Harbor on Fishers Island, a destination I'd hoped to reach at some point under less desperate circumstances. Any deviation to the north, where I'd planned to go that day, would expose our starboard bow to breaking waves, any to the south would send us into the rocks at the eastern end of Fishers, or out to sea, with only Block Island between us and a very irritable ocean.

    An hour later, as I negotiated the various rocks, buoys and shoals of Fishers Island Sound, I felt a slight sense of deliverance—with the island's land mass on our port and West Harbor on our bow, it was only a matter of enduring the nearly unendurable before we reached safety.

    That feeling lasted until the cable that connected the helm to the rudder decided to snap. Then all bets were off.

    As I spun the impotent wheel in stunned disbelief, the boat responded as engineered, by driving up into the wind. In gentler conditions, this would be welcomed, since it would stall forward momentum and settle things into a manageable drift until help arrived. Now it meant we were brainlessly turning into the fury of the following seas, offering the broad length of the boat to whatever vindictive forces lay in wait.

    As the boat pitched sideways, I went flying. Amanda screamed and grabbed at my foulies, both of us at the extreme lengths of our tethers. I hit the coaming that surrounded the cockpit hard enough to knock the wind out of me for a moment, but nothing broke. As the boat slapped over on its side, we held on to each other and strained to stay above the water pouring into the cockpit.

14 BLACK SWAN

    Then, as if by magic, the Carpe Mañana righted herself, as all good sailboats are trained to do, and we had a few seconds reprieve.

    As the boarding seas slowly drained out the scuppers, I wrenched open a compartment in the cockpit called a lazarette and yanked out the emergency tiller, which through some bit of divine luck I'd noticed on my own during the otherwise thorough check-out of the boat when we picked her up in Maine. The next trick was to get it lodged in the fitting below the helmsman's seat. The fitting was covered by a tidy little fiberglass cap removable by unscrewing two big Phillips head screws. This would be a difficult task in the rough weather, so I chose a more expedient route and punched out the cap with a sharp snap of my right fist.

    A regular person, one who hadn't had a brief career as a professional boxer, would have broken his hand with a stunt like that, and done nothing to remove the cap. I, however, obliterated the cap. And broke my hand.

    Not the whole hand. Just the bone behind the knuckle of my middle finger. It hurt like hell, but I could still work my fingers, which would have to do until things improved.

    Seconds before another wave had a chance to shove the boat under water, I fixed the emergency rudder to the fitting and pulled as hard as I could to port. This had the effect of shoving us to starboard and getting the bow facing the direction it needed to be if we were going to arrive at West Harbor as something more than a tangled mass of irredeemable salvage.

    As we rode the hurtling seas, I felt almost airborne. I stole a glance at the GPS, which showed a speed over ground of nine-and-a-half knots, with a fleeting moment at ten point two. That the boat's maximum theoretical hull speed was eight point five told me something.

    The handle of the emergency tiller was about half the length it should have been to provide the necessary leverage

Chris Knopf 15

to steer a 46' custom sloop in ideal conditions. Based on the tidy, elegant way it was stowed inside the lazarette, the boat designer had probably seen it as a cute accessory that would look good in the brochure under the heading: STANDARD SAFETY EQUIPMENT.

    The other challenge was to adjust to the ass-backwards logic of a tiller, wherein pulling to the right makes the boat go left. The boat flirted with another knockdown as I reconciled a few thousand new operational variables, but eventually I regained the mental state that had almost brought us to safety, back in the good old days before we lost the wheel.

    As the struggle continued, I was again haunted by the notion that a boat can always handle more abuse than its human cargo. I was feeling the evidence of that, in my arms, back and hands, which were steadily losing their grip. I was in fairly good shape for a fifty-seven-year-old, and working as a carpenter had actually improved my hand strength. But manhandling 32,000 pounds of displacement through the agitator cycle of a giant washing machine, for ten hours straight, would eventually take its toll on anybody.

    I was fading.

    My first thought was to have Amanda relieve me, but that wasn't a possibility. She was a strong girl, and ever willing to tackle whatever came her way, but this was technical sailing at its most extreme. Even I wasn't qualified to deal with conditions like this. She was just learning how to steer a sailboat, which every novice instantly learns is nothing like steering a car. And now we were running with an inadequate tiller that would have tested the patience and resolve of Bernard Moitessier. It wasn't going to happen. But there was something she could do.

    Hey, good looking, I yelled to her.

    Yeah?

    Come over here and cozy up to me.

16 BLACK SWAN

Anytime, sailor.

Stay clipped.

    I switched over to the port side of the helmsman's seat and asked her to sit on the starboard. Then I explained the basic concept.

    When I tell you, push like hell against the tiller. When I tell you to stop, stop. When I tell you to pull, pull. Etcetera.

    I think I can follow that.

    I apologize in advance for yelling, I said. Timing is crucial here.

    I won't hold it against you. As long as you don't yell, like, at me.

    Never, darling, I yelled.

    This worked reasonably well, though I had to add a command, Hands off, since she had the natural tendency to grip the tiller in anticipation of the next maneuver. The command was actually Hands off, gorgeous as a way of preserving civility, a prerequisite for our delicately maintained romantic entanglement.

    And thus we found an effective rhythm, and Amanda earned a priceless insight into the Zen of steering a sailboat through heavy weather, a matter defined more by instinct than conscious thought.

    There's no better proof that time can be slowed to a crawl. Time and space, as I watched the northern coast of Fishers Island seemingly fixed in place as we roared through the wrathful seas.

    When do I get to ask 'Are we there yet?' Amanda asked.

When we're there. Pull.

    Soon after that exchange, I realized the grey green hump I thought was a piece of the distant Connecticut shoreline was North Dumpling, a small island just past the mouth of West Harbor. I told Amanda to keep the tiller right in the middle no matter what happened, and checked the GPS.

Chris Knopf 17

    We were less than twenty feet from a cluster of rocks. I snatched the tiller back and shoved us hard to port. The Carpe Mañana groaned under the strain of the sudden course change, but then catching the thrust of the next wave, she shot off in the new direction like it was all her idea. I reminded myself that Fishers Island Sound was full of lethal obstructions, above and below water, and that God had given the world GPS so fools like me had an easy way to avoid catastrophe. All I had to do was check it once in a while.

    As we passed the rocky shoal, I saw the white buoy that under normal circumstances would have given even the unobservant fair warning. It was only visible for a few seconds at a time, helpless against the battering of the big water.

    Now thoroughly oriented, I looked for the giant red bell buoy that marked the beginning of the channel into West Harbor. That is, I looked when we were at the top of a wave, with a quarter-mile view across the white and grey chop. Seconds later we'd be down in a trough, facing a wall of water that any rational person would presume was within an instant of smashing us into oblivion. But then the next second we'd be aloft again, on top of a world gone mad.

    I checked the GPS again, wondering if I was seeing things clearly through my exhaustion and the spray of saltwater and pelting rain.

    Where is that goddamned buoy?

    Don't goddamned know, Captain, said Amanda. I don't goddamn know where any goddamn thing is anymore.

    So often on the water you come to doubt the evidence of your own eyes, or the accuracy of your electronics, or the reckoning of your navigation. It's not like the reality of hard ground, where things are usually where they're supposed to be, and the surface isn't a sickening mass of unpredictable undulations.

18 BLACK SWAN

No, I said to my senses. It's there ahead. It has to be.

Maybe somebody moved it, said Amanda, trying to help.

    Impossible, I said, and to prove the point, there it was, suddenly directly in front of our boat, rising up through the foam like a watery red demon, having been knocked over and drowned momentarily in the churning waves.

    This time I chose to go to starboard, for no other reason than I was afraid the opposite thrust of the tiller would crush Amanda. Either way, it didn't seem possible that we could avoid crashing into the buoy. I started to make a silent accounting of life preservers, what clothing would have to come off to maintain buoyancy and how I'd keep Eddie's snout above the water. Also, calculating the odds that any of us could swim in the cold, lunatic waters to Flat Hammock, another island that helped define West Harbor, and once there, manage our way through the rocky shore to terra firma.

    I closed my eyes under the strain of the tiller, and then opened them moments later to see in front of me the familiar surf, but no big red buoy. It had moved off our port stern, quickly left behind to attend to its own battles.

    That was the good news. The bad news was the shoal the red buoy was in place to mark was now below the boat. I made another reckless, but essential, pull of the tiller, forcing the bow back into the channel leading to the harbor.

    Moments later, the sea conditions suddenly downshifted into the merely uncomfortable. And now I could see where I wanted to be, with all the familiar landmarks, however obscured by rain and swirling wind. I knew we'd made it.

    I shared that with Amanda.

    And was there ever any doubt? she asked.

    Certainty's a rare thing here on the high seas, I said. There's only one thing that would insure survival.

    I'd relieved her of her tiller duty, and she was back in her spot wedged against the bulkhead, her proud mane of

Chris Knopf 19

auburn hair pasted to her scalp and trailing in sodden ribbons over her shoulders and down the front of her orange foulies. Her face, daubed with rain droplets, filled with anxious wonder.

    What would that be? she asked.

    The vodka's in a cabinet next to the galley sink. There's plenty of ice in the cooler. You know where the plastic cups are. Don't be stingy.

    Amanda had wine. Eddie woke up in time to join us as we passed into West Harbor. The wind was still at our backs, but the waves had been further tamed by the surrounding land and Flat Hammock. I muscled the boat into the wind and we dropped the mainsail and fired up the motor, and the Carpe Mañana limped past the breakwater and into the Inner Harbor, finally safe and secure.

    At least from the sea.

Chapter

2

Being October, I knew I'd find plenty of empty moorings in the Inner Harbor. Grabbing one was theft, pure and simple, but no decent person would begrudge a boatful of battered refugees from a stormy sea.

    Since Amanda had little experience snagging moorings, it took a few passes for her to secure the buoy connected to a line that ran to the concrete mushroom sitting immovable on the seafloor.

    The wind, though substantially abated, was still enough to add to the challenge. But we did it, with little damage to the boat or our social equanimity.

    We were soon a pair of lumps sitting in the cockpit, drinking heavily and commenting on the beauty of the surrounding harbor. The rain stopped and blue patches opened up in the sky, allowing the sun to light up the autumnal trees, waterside homes, flagpoles, and the remaining small craft—motorized and sail—all graceful, waiting to be hauled for the winter.

    Amanda wanted to discuss the fortunes of the last twelve hours, good and bad. I did my best.

    And you call that fun? she asked.

20

Chris Knopf 21

    Fun is a wimp of a word. Doesn't describe meaningful human experience. Except those involving full body contact.

    Did you think at any time we might not make it? she asked.

    I might have. So what? We made it. By the way, you look like a drowned Airedale.

    How many Airedales wear orange jump suits?

    I slumped down in the cockpit seat and counted my blessings to the beat of my thumping heart. I had wondered more than once if I'd be able to bring the boat safely to shore, and while I cared somewhat for my own survival, the thought of having put Amanda and Eddie at risk was unbearable. And consequently inconceivable, until we were all safe and sound, and mortal danger once again a theoretical construct.

    The sun had begun to dip behind a stand of trees, backlighting the leafy red, orange and green palette. The sky above was the color of faded blue jeans, soon to be purple and rose. Typical of October, frenzied wind and sea con- ditions didn't always correlate with precipitation. A sailor could be consumed by a raging maelstrom, while the folks on shore enjoyed a sunny, breezy day.

    You should call Burton, said Amanda. His boatbuilder's got some explaining to do.

    I unzipped a pocket on the sleeve of my foulie and pulled out my cell phone. There was plenty of battery power, but no signal. I flipped it closed and refocused on my drink.

    I'll dinghy in and find a pay phone, I said. After I purge about a gallon of adrenalin and bring my heart rate down closer to a hummingbird's.

    Even wet and bedraggled, Amanda's essential beauty fought through. In the waning light of day, and the calming of the sea, the tone of her green eyes and olive skin had deepened, and her smile regained its brilliance.

22 BLACK SWAN

    I think I just heard an admission of weakness, she said. It's becoming.

    Don't pull that gender sensitivity falderal on me, young lady. I'm college trained. MIT.

    How's your hand? she asked.

    Broken. Not yet hurting in earnest. Too much adrenalin. Though a screwdriver might have been a better idea. In retrospect.

    I should wrap it up with something, she said.

    First aid kit's below.

    I've often marveled at a human's ability to move on from severe stress, at least while still in the moment. The ultimate consequences were usually held in abeyance, shoved snarling into a dark corner, ready to bust loose just when everyone thinks the coast is clear.

    Amanda brought up a handful of stuff from the first aid kit to make a solid, functional brace for my damaged hand, which responded with sudden, throbbing pain.

    Perfect, I said.

    You need to call Burton. Can you manage the dinghy?

    With one hand tied behind my back, I told her. Which was more or less how it went.

    All I had to do was pull the fifty-pound deflated dinghy out of the cockpit lazarette, inflate it, drop it over the side, lower the saltwater-soaked outboard from the transom mount and attach

Reviews for Black Swan

[noranydrop2read · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sam Acquillo is a rarity in series fiction: the protagonist who starts out at rock bottom and stays interesting as he gets his life together. At this stage of his development, he is marooned on an unfriendly island off the tip of Long Island with his girlfriend, Amanda and dog, Eddie. Poor Sam. All he ever really wants to do is be left alone, but his senses of justice and chivalry once again see him embroiled in a dangerous mess. With more severe weather in the forecast, he is forced to seek shelter at the island's inn, the Black Swan, where the owner's daughter, Anika, is a lovely young thing with an eye for Sam. When Sam suspects that a suicide at the inn is the result of foul play, his nature does not permit him to walk away, despite the danger. Sam fears for Anika's safety, and for that of her computer genius brother, who appears to be the target of some very unsavory people.In essence, this is a locked-room mystery, with the weather serving to keep the island relatively cut off from the mainland. The supporting characters keep secrets and tell lies, making for a mystery of satisfying complexity. This would be melodramatic if it weren't for Knopf's wicked sense of humor. He adds levity at just the right moments to alleviate the tension:"I introduced her to Amanda, who complimented Anika on her leather choke collar. I'd lived among women long enough to know this was a peace ritual, an expressed hope for boundaries to be respected and good will shared among all. Anika responded with a demure glance toward the ground, a fondling of the observed object, and a suggestion that it would look far better on Amanda, given her long, slender neck. I wondered if I should now piss on the grass at Amanda's feet, anthropologically speaking" (pp. 35-6; uncorrected proof).Sam is a complex fellow, a former boxer and former engineer who left corporate America for a quiet life by the water. His experience with solving complex problems, not to mention his right hook, have helped him get to the bottom of some thorny mysteries in the past. In the first book, he has hit rock bottom, but he is not indifferent. BLACK SWAN is the fifth book in the series. Sam has grown as a person, but Knopf has kept him complex and unpredictable. Sam is wittier than your usual hard-boiled detective, more competent than your usual amateur sleuth, and he sometimes lets his inner boxer get the better of him. He may know exactly what he ought to do, and then do the opposite. There are no ruts or predictable patterns in this series.Knopf is equally at home describing the finer points of sailing in a storm, how to sabotage software, or the best self-defense moves in close quarters, and his clarity, wit, and precise language are the perfect backdrop for an engaging mystery. I highly recommend that you begin with THE LAST REFUGE.FTC Source Disclosure: I received an ARE courtesy of The Permanent Press.

[missreadstoomuch · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Chris Knopf's new mystery, Black Swan, starts out in a sailboat fighting through a life-or-death storm and ends with an exciting who-done-it conclusion, however the middle just doesn't quite live up to the promise or the finish. To be fair, I haven't read the first four Sam Acquillo novels and I think having a history with the main characters Sam and his girlfriend Amanda would have made me feel more involved with them as a reader. As it was though, Amanda fell flat - she was just the sassy boat chick the main character kept leaving behind - and Sam seemed overly obsessed with crimes that didn't involve him. The mystery was good and the storm sequences were exciting.The book was entertaining enough for me to read the other books should I come across them but not quite interesting enough for me rave about it to my compadres.

[daisygrl09 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book did not peak my interest. It did keep you guessing as to who committed the murder, but I didn't feel like there was any real "meat" to the story. Sam is taking a boat back to the owner and is forced to stop on a so-called "members only" island due to an oncoming storm. While he is there, a murder is committed and he assumes the role of finding out whodunit. I would not recommend this book.

[ellenr_79 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sam and girlfriend Amanda become stranded on inhospitable Fishers Island during a storm while sailing friend Burton's new yacht home to Long Island. The eccentric family running the Black Swan hotel are the only ones who seem friendly. But their friends seem less friendly and when one turns up dead, looking like a suicide, Sam gets involved in a tangle of who to trust and why. The fate of a major computer software company is at stake and someone on the island holds the literal key to the bug that could make the new product sink or swim. Like others in the series, Sam uses his background as an engineer to puzzle out solutions while still being a bit of an updated Travis McGee. The plot moves along nicely with a few unexpected turns and Knopf has developed Sam Acquillo as an enduring character not to be taken for granted.

[murdermysterymayhem · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What is there to say about a guy that consistently sails towards trouble? He either has a very large black cloud following him around or he just might be attracted to the trouble, with Sam Acquillo it's both. A simple boat delivery turns into a fight for their lives when a bad storm lands Sam and his girlfriend Amanda on Fishers Island off Long Island, NY. Their welcome isn't exactly friendly but they find refuge with other outsiders, the Feys, who recently bought the island's run down hotel, the Black Swan. The owner Christian is helpful but evasive and his daughter Anika is cryptic, hinting at trouble and then doing her best to cause it. If trying to get custom boat parts isn't hard enough, a hurricane is bearing down on the island which doesn't leave much time for Sam and Amanda to get back across the sound. So when more guests arrive in the face of the storm, off season, at this "closed" hotel Sam begins to wonder what's going on. Especially when the Feys don't look thrilled to see their old business partners who seem to be accompanied by some muscle. When Christian's son Axel, the autistic computer savant, disappears after a dead body shows up things start to get really ugly. Sam just can't seem to stop himself from helping the damsel in distress, even if she doesn't deserve it. And his conscious won't let him leave Axel out on the island alone, even when his family doesn't seem that alarmed by the fact that he's missing. Sam - the tough guy - uses his brains, brawn, and wit to once again get out of the situations that his quick fist, smart mouth, and attraction to trouble have gotten him into. But will Amanda stand by while he plays the hero? - Recommended

[momgee_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While sailing during an intense storm, Sam Acquillo, his dog Eddie and girlfriend Amanda are forced to find the closest harbor for shelter. They end up at Fisher's Island in the Long Island Sound. The Fey family, new owners of the hotel, Black Swan, allow Sam to tie up to their mooring while they wait for repairs to the sailboat.What they find is more than shelter; they find the Fey family in the midst of some company technology problems involving abig money conspiracy that escalates into murder and dangerous situations. Not only does Sam have to repel the amorous advances of Anika Fey but he finds himself in the position of keeping her brother, Axel, safe from the creepy characters that are trying to force him to fix the company's tech glitches.Black Swan is the fifth book in the Sam Acquillo Hampton's Mystery series. I thought the character of Amanda could have been much more fleshed out. I also would have liked to have seen more plot and less weather and boat descriptions. By the middle of the book, I found my interest lagging but the ending was okay. Maybe if I had started the series from the beginning, it would have made a difference. I'm not too sure I would go back and read the first four though.Disclosure: I received this as part of LT's early reviewer program

[lchav52_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Opening with Sam Acquillo and his girl, Amanda, in a sailboat, being tossed like salad by a sudden storm, the book promises a story that will keep the reader turning the page. It does deliver, but on a somewhat less-energetic scale than first indicated.Sam and Amanda, boat damaged by the storm, are forced to put in at Fisher's Island, an semi-isolated island off Long Island, where the locals are not especially keen to have outsiders show up out of season. The proprietors of the Black Swan hotel, newcomers themselves, permit them to tie up and wait for repair parts, In the interim, murder, assault, disappearances, all seeming to swirl around the Black Swan's owner, draw Sam into a well-done and pleasing mystery.I haven't read the other Sam Acquillo mysteries, but enjoyed this one enough to look them up.

[oregonreader · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the fifth in the series of Sam Acquillo mysteries. I have not read the first four and found that this book stands well alone. Much of the book takes place on a sailboat. Sam and his girlfriend Amanda are trying to deliver the boat to the Hamptons for a friend but have to take refuge in a harbor on a small, very private island. I am not a sailor and can't speak to the technical acumen but Knopf describes Sam's handling of the boat during a storm well enough for the average reader to follow. Sam and Amanda encounter hostility from some of the locals but the new owners of the hotel, the Black Swan, welcome them. While waiting for boat parts to be shipped to them, they become embroiled in two deaths and the disappearance of a very disturbed young man. The plot involves extremely advanced computer coding and the machinations of the owners of a large software company. As Sam becomes more and more involved, at the risk of his own life, he asks himself why he doesn't just leave. I found myself asking the same question. I could only conclude that Sam has an extremely finely honed sense of justice. In a genre where there are great extremes of writing ability, Knopf is among the better I've read. He gives Sam a strong, consistent voice and carries the reader along extremely complicated plot turns. It's a quick and enjoyable read.

[delphimo_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

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 nautical adventures, a little too much for this land lover. The characters are well described, as well as the current weather conditions. The weather and the sailboat reign as the main characters. Then the detour into the workings of software programming and of the software developers ruined any pleasure that this novel might have elicited. The weak attempt of Anika to seduce Sam unfolds like a Harlequin romance. This is not a series to garner my attention.

[mckait · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the first book in the Sam Acquillo series that I have read. I enjoyed it from the first page. The reader is drawn into some fast action and witty dialogue immediately. The book opens with Sam , girl friend Amanda, and Sam's lively mutt Eddie, delivering a sleek, new, sailboat to a friend.A storm came up with no warning and Sam and Amanda have their hands full keeping the boat on thewater, instead of under it. Obviously, they do manage to survive or it would have been a very short book, and that would havebeen a shame. This was a good Sunday afternoon read. It was fast paced, very fast paced. No timeto be bogged down, as every page was filled with either charming and witty dialog or pertinent events. It was filled with improbable situations that only made the story more fun. Who needs a fun read to berealistic?If you are looking for deep drama, or a literary challenge, avoid this book. You won't be impressed.If you want a good fast paced mystery on an island being rocked by sudden storms and an even more sudden spurt of serious crime, give it a try. The solution to the mystery is interesting and has a unique twist.

[allisonmariecat · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sam Acquillo is a rarity in series fiction: the protagonist who starts out at rock bottom and stays interesting as he gets his life together. At this stage of his development, he is marooned on an unfriendly island off the tip of Long Island with his girlfriend, Amanda and dog, Eddie. Poor Sam. All he ever really wants to do is be left alone, but his senses of justice and chivalry once again see him embroiled in a dangerous mess. With more severe weather in the forecast, he is forced to seek shelter at the island's inn, the Black Swan, where the owner's daughter, Anika, is a lovely young thing with an eye for Sam. When Sam suspects that a suicide at the inn is the result of foul play, his nature does not permit him to walk away, despite the danger. Sam fears for Anika's safety, and for that of her computer genius brother, who appears to be the target of some very unsavory people.In essence, this is a locked-room mystery, with the weather serving to keep the island relatively cut off from the mainland. The supporting characters keep secrets and tell lies, making for a mystery of satisfying complexity. This would be melodramatic if it weren't for Knopf's wicked sense of humor. He adds levity at just the right moments to alleviate the tension:"I introduced her to Amanda, who complimented Anika on her leather choke collar. I'd lived among women long enough to know this was a peace ritual, an expressed hope for boundaries to be respected and good will shared among all. Anika responded with a demure glance toward the ground, a fondling of the observed object, and a suggestion that it would look far better on Amanda, given her long, slender neck. I wondered if I should now piss on the grass at Amanda's feet, anthropologically speaking" (pp. 35-6; uncorrected proof).Sam is a complex fellow, a former boxer and former engineer who left corporate America for a quiet life by the water. His experience with solving complex problems, not to mention his right hook, have helped him get to the bottom of some thorny mysteries in the past. In the first book, he has hit rock bottom, but he is not indifferent. BLACK SWAN is the fifth book in the series. Sam has grown as a person, but Knopf has kept him complex and unpredictable. Sam is wittier than your usual hard-boiled detective, more competent than your usual amateur sleuth, and he sometimes lets his inner boxer get the better of him. He may know exactly what he ought to do, and then do the opposite. There are no ruts or predictable patterns in this series.Knopf is equally at home describing the finer points of sailing in a storm, how to sabotage software, or the best self-defense moves in close quarters, and his clarity, wit, and precise language are the perfect backdrop for an engaging mystery. I highly recommend that you begin with THE LAST REFUGE.FTC Source Disclosure: I received an ARE courtesy of The Permanent Press.

[saratoga99 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Black Swan churns with unpredictable intensity as torrential storms erratically disperse the East Coast's calm waters shortly after the newly crafted Carpe Mañana begins its carefully charted maiden voyage under the proficient navigation of its provisional Captain Sam Acquillo, faithful first mate Amanda Anselma and affable cur Eddie Van Halen when fulminating squalls confirm NOAA's ominous warnings and unceremoniously disrupt their Hamptons' bound nautical mission.With a captain's stalwart determination to avoid any perilous weather that might further damage his vessel beyond the reparable faulty helm, Sam precariously moors his entire precious cargo to an asylum harbour covertly attached to the privately secluded Fishers Island an exclusive enclave restricted to generational "old money," and a minute rich summer crowd. Further proof that neither Sam, his crew nor his disabled craft are welcome appears in the form of one brutish caretaker with an unyielding warning as abysmally dismal as NOAA's impending forecast. Chris Knopf, so richly adept in the metaphoric use of turbulent weather whips up a whirling tempest which encompasses a motley crew, most of whom noticeably belie Fishers Island's elitist prerequisites. Sam stumbles upon the island's lackluster Black Swan hotel's elusive new owners, aptly named Fey who obviously lack the congenial disposition necessary to succeed in the hospitality profession. Churning in Sam's inquisitive mind are the subtle cryptic secrets underlying such a radical departure for former corporate high-end computer techie Christian and his family to so drastically switch gears. Therein lays the conundrum which accelerates with the arrival of corporate villains, murder and mayhem, wandering autistic savant son Axel, deceptively alluring synesthethic bruised daughter Anika and Sam's "chronic inappropriateness" in delving into a swirling scenario in the midst of what Sam defines as "…an indiscriminate beast, blind and relentless and ultimately doomed, but impossible to ignore, foolish to deny…", a devastating October hurricane. With the exception of "…ultimately doomed…," categorically a fitting and suitable definition of Sam Acquillo, newfound fictional friend.

[doggonelaura · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I haven’t read the other Sam Acquillo mysteries, but this was a pleasant mystery. It seemed Sam had a lot of character development over the previous books, nicely hinted at, which gave him some depth. The story had some good turns and twists, and I enjoyed it (liked the dog too). This type of mystery is not my typical read and was not quite compelling enough to make me want to run out and read the previous books. Overall, if you liked Sam in the other books, I’d guess you’d like him in this one.

[wisterialeigh · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

BLACK SWANA Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery by Chris KnopfThe Permanent PressMay 2011$28.00, 304pages978-1-57962-216-9Synopsis from The Permanent PressA savage storm maroons Sam Acquillo, his girlfriend Amanda and charming nut-case pooch Eddie Van Halen on a nearly-deserted island off the tip of Long Island. Not just any island, but an enclave of old money eccentrics, xenophobic natives and a family of high tech refugees threatened by vicious mercenaries and secrets of their past.Sam just wants to fix his boat and move on, but tempests both manmade and meteorological take over, and suddenly everything is on the line, including his own life. ~The Permanent PressMy ReviewIt’s not often I fall in love with a character in a novel, but Sam Acquillo is a viable understudy for a lead stand-in for the few who come to mind. Competition is tough, but his clever wit and boldness is reminiscent of a few, a Macguiver type comes to mind. Women can love this guy, because he is charming, yet not full of himself, an embraceable quality. He is boyishly respectful and shy around women and loves his dog, Eddie an animated little mutt. After abandoning his engineering career to become a carpenter he has appointed himself part-time crime detective. In this his fifth novel of the series, he and his girlfriend Amanda take refuge on Fishers Island during a storm. They are on their way to deliver the newly purchased sailboat, Carpe Mañana to Sam’s friend. Their arrival is met with a lackluster welcome by Christian Fey, the hotel owner of the Black Swan. Now retired after working in the computer technology industry, he lives with his son Axel, a brilliant albeit annoying autistic savant and Anika, his son’s sister. Anika Fey, is an artistic sultry siren who has a much warmer greeting and underlying intentions for the seemingly unguarded Sam. As in the infamous board-game Clue, a guest and friend of the owner is found dead and there are limited suspects. Sam discounts suicide immediately and when the local police woman is found seriously beaten, his suspicions are solidified. Chris Knopf is a poetically powerful writer. His keen observing eye provides a vivid awareness of your presence within the story and knowing the characters. He commands the readers engagement. His imagery is fluid and imaginative providing a sensual experience. You can almost feel the fog, smell the salt air with a shivered chill and fear the forces of the frenetic winds of the hurricane. His storytelling is a satisfying adventure. It simmers slowly, clues emerge but are turbid, like the waters of the storm until the aftermath, when all becomes clear. It is understandable why his previous four novels have earned such deserving praise. Highly recommended.