Cop Job by Chris Knopf, a Mysterious Review.

Review: After a wheelchair-bound veteran is found drowned in the harbor, the district attorney approaches Sam Acquillo and his lawyer Jackie Swaitkowski to take an unofficial look into what might have happened … and why, in Cop Job, the sixth mystery in this series by Chris Knopf.

There's a good reason why Edith Madison, the district attorney, is making her unusual request to Sam and Jackie: she suspects that the local Hampton police force may be involved in some way. But she doesn't know who might be involved and at what level. Her prior experience with both Sam and Jackie suggests that she can trust them, but it isn't too long before they begin to wonder about Edith, who is running for re-election. Is her request politically motivated?

Cop Job is superb as a mystery, as one has come to expect with the books in this series, with an intricately devised and well-thought out plot that leads readers in one direction all the while setting up for a (mostly) surprise ending. (There does, however, seem to be quite a bit of foreshadowing here with respect to one of the more obvious accessories to the killing, though it plays out in a not quite expected manner.) There are a lot of characters to keep track of, and maybe a few too many blind alley subplots, making for a slightly more complicated story than is probably strictly necessary. One of those subplots seems completely superfluous, specifically the on involving the near fatal attack on Sam's daughter, Allison. It's touching in the way of a father-daughter relationship never quite realizing its full potential until it's almost too late, but too, it's never quite clear — or, more accurately, the reason given seems particularly flimsy — why the killers chose to get her involved in the first place, and is the sole reason why this otherwise exceptional mystery is being (slightly) downgraded. Knopf has a literary, almost lyrical, way of constructing narrative, and, in addition to his typically tightly-constructed storylines, is one of the many pleasures of reading his books; this latest one is highly recommended.

Dead Anyway
The Permanent Press (Hardcover), September 2012
ISBN-13: 9781579622831; ISBN-10: 1579622836

Back Lash
The Permanent Press (Hardcover), May 2016
ISBN-13: 9781579624293; ISBN-10: 157962183X

Cop Job

A Sam Acquillo Mystery by Chris Knopf