Dead Anyway - Hardcover

CHRIS KNOPF's four 'Sam Acquillo' mysteries have received exceptional accolades, with critics likening Sam to Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade, Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, and Robert B. Parker's Spenser, while repeatedly comparing Knopf to Elmore Leonard and both John D. MacDonald and Ross Macdonald. The Last Refuge, Two Time, and Hard Stop were finalists for the Connecticut Book Award. Two Time was one of thirteen mysteries listed as recommended summer reading in the New York Times Book Review and was listed in Entertainment Weekly as one of the fifty ''Hot Picks'' of that summer. Publishers Weekly chose it as one of the ''Best 100 Books for 2006.'' Head Wounds won the 2008 Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Mystery. A sailor, cabinet maker, and advertising executive in Connecticut, Chris and his wife Mary also spend considerable time at their Southampton, Long Island, home.

''Knopf . . . reaches a new imaginative peak with market researcher Arthur Cathcart in this outstanding revenge novel.'' --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

''Dead Anyway is a perfectly rendered murder mystery with enough unpredictable twists and turns to satisfy even the most hardened aficionado of the genre. Dry humor is scattered throughout. This offbeat story told in the first-person is executed with faultless page-turner pacing and panache.'' --New York Journal of Books

''Nothing in Knopf's reflective, quietly loopy Hamptons mysteries starring Sam Acquillo and Jackie Swaitkowski will have prepared his fans for this taut, streamlined tale of a man investigating his own murder . . . An absorbing update of the classic film, D.O.A., that finds its author so completely in the zone that not a word is wasted, and the story seems to unfold itself without human assistance.'' --Kirkus Reviews (starred review

''Knopf's tale is suspenseful from the get-go, with an intellectual, yet visceral, vigilantism coursing through the pages. In a major change in direction, the author of the Sam Acquillo Hamptons mysteries never misses an angle and manages to weave a bit of humor into a storyline that could have been purely dark. This bodes well for a really good series and is reminiscent of Richard Stark's (a.k.a. Donald Westlake) Parker novels with a dose of Grosse Pointe Blank.'' --Library Journal (starred review)

''Knopf, whose Hamptons-based series featuring Sam Aquillo and Jackie Swaitkowski effectively mixes comedy and mystery, goes a different way here, with a high-energy, very savvy thriller . . . The novel generates enormous tension, and the mild-mannered number-cruncher is definitely an appealing hero. It's unclear if the novel is intended to be a stand-alone, or if it will launch a new series, but we'd very much like to see more of the engaging Catchart.'' --Booklist (starred review)

''Should be on your reading list . . . Expect a literate, witty murder mystery and some sly comments along the way about the social and criminal scene in Connecticut. You probably won't expect the hero, a change for Knopf from the sexy, cynical, hard-drinking protagonist who drives his earlier books, which are set in the Hamptons, but you'll admire Arthur Cathcart . . . Fun book.'' --NPR review