Sam Acquilla is a cynical man in his early fifties who wants as little to do with the rest of the world as possible so he’s built up a quiet life that mainly consists of drinking alone. The ending is not as sure-footed as in later novels. He knew she never took baths but always took showers because of a bad back.Ī bit of a roughneck himself, having put himself through college with professional boxing winnings, Sam unravels clues his own way, enlisting wary cooperation from a local cop and a gorgeous, offbeat lawyer. That is, until an elderly neighbor's death in the bathtub triggers his curiosity. Sam takes up residence in a Hamptons cottage (which his roughneck father built before getting himself murdered), buys a dog and hides from the world.
In "The Last Refuge," we meet Sam Aquillo, former industrial designer at a high-powered corporation, who quits because his division is to be sold and his coworkers put on the street, who loses his wife and home, and whose beloved daughter objects to his suicidal drinking and walks out of his life. The later mysteries are better in this regard. The previous reader of my library copy was frustrated enough to start penciling in corrections but gave up after a few pages. And yet the the writing in general is so literary, I can't help thinking the author was not the culprit but either someone who thought they were helping or over-reliance on a crazed spellcheck program. Hayden for Haydn, then for than, Cotswold's for Cotswolds, Maxwell Parrish for Maxfield Parrish, it's for its. I really like this writer's plots, pacing, characters and setting descriptions, but, oh, the copyediting in this, his first, novel! What a mess.
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