Dead Anyway

by Chris Knopf

Overview

Organizational psychologist Dr. Waters is a happily solitary guy with a few deep attachments, including to his boss Paresh Rajput, the owner of a thriving hi-tech aerospace company. Until something really bad happens to CEO Rajput, which throws Waters into a lunatic swirl of murderous stalkers, corporate intrigue, amorous female executives and crafty cops who see the inscrutable psychologist as murder suspect #1. Waters is hardly defenseless. A weight-lifter and former wrestler, ace poker player and master student of human nature, he takes it all on with surprising strength and determination. If they only knew. As with the connivers surrounding him, Waters has his own secrets. Autistic as a child, he lives with the consequences some blessings, others a curse. And a love affair that's hidden even more deeply, or so he thinks. You're Dead is a mystery/thriller, an adventure story, though in the context of the present zeitgeist the financial stakes of hi-tech ascendancy and flourishing commerce, corporate and personal venality, manipulations by the rich and powerful men and women and the ugly presence of base criminality that crackles around the fringes. It's about troubled and troubling minds, and institutions that struggle to assert relevance, but also how one man, single-minded and apart, can disrupt what the lead detective on the case calls, "Their clever-clever ways." Every writer has their themes and pre-occupations. For Knopf, it's the intricacies of the mind, the most complex organism in the universe. The aberrations, as well as the indefinable "normal". You're Dead is an action-filled examination of what happens when minds of all kinds collide.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781410455055
Publisher:	Gale Cengage Learning
Publication date:	02/22/2013
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	455
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Back Lash, CHRIS KNOPF’S seventh Sam Acquillo Mystery Series published in 2016, received a starred review from Booklist. It followed Cop Job in 2015, about which Booklist said: “Another winner from a consistently strong author. “Knopf’s first novel, The Last Refuge (2005) and followup in 2007, Two Time, were both reviewed by Marilyn Stasio of the New York Times. Head Wounds was cited as one of the best mysteries of 2008 by both Mysterious Reviews and Deadly Pleasures, and was winner of the 2008 Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Mystery. His thriller series featuring off-the-grid sleuth Arthur Cathcart began with Dead Anyway, which received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus and Library Journal. It was named one of The Best Crime Novels of 2012 by The Boston Globe and won the 2013 Nero Award. Chris Knopf had a long, award-winning career in advertising, focused on the creative side of the business, and agency management as CEO of Mintz + Hoke. He’s also a house designer and cabinetmaker, single-handed sailor, rock musician and custodian of terriers. He and his wife Mary Farrell split their time between Avon, CT and Southampton, NY.

Editorial Reviews

Knopf, creator of lawyer Jackie Swaitkowski (Ice Cap, etc.) and retired engineer Sam Acquillo (Black Swan, etc.), reaches a new imaginative peak with market researcher Arthur Cathcart in this outstanding revenge novel. One afternoon, Cathcart returns to his Stamford, Conn., home to find his wife, Florencia, sitting in the living room with a man holding a gun. After forcing Florencia to sign a document, the man shoots each of them in the head. Cathcart survives, but is in a coma for months. When he awakes, Cathcart succeeds, with the connivance of his physician sister, in having himself declared dead. As he begins the tortuous rehabilitation process and looks into establishing new identities, Cathcart realizes that it’s almost impossible to go off the grid totally and still be able to function effectively, so he has to compromise in inventive ways. Cathcart ingeniously manages to penetrate the world of hired killers and major crime figures in his quest to discover both the who and the why behind the original hit. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

When a hit man shows up at Arthur Cathcart's home and assassinates his wife, Arthur is badly wounded, but not quite dead, and his physician sister is able to get him back on his feet. Angry Arthur has mapped out a strategy to make everyone to think he's dead, and he's concocted an elaborate alternative identity plan so he can track down the hit man himself. Since Arthur was a professional researcher, his prowess with online detecting is quite remarkable. His audacious plan is both psychologically chilling and exciting as the plot burrows through the bowels of underworld Connecticut. Running the supreme con, Arthur pulls in his prey. VERDICT 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" (Black Swan; Hard Stop) 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 (aka Donald Westlake) Parker novels with a dose of Grosse Point Blank.

Library Journal

Nothing in Knopf's reflective, quietly loopy Hamptons mysteries starring Sam Acquillo and Jackie Swaitkowski (Ice Cap, 2012, etc.) will have prepared his fans for this taut, streamlined tale of a man investigating his own murder. The hit man who invades the Cathcarts' upscale home in Stamford, Conn., tells Florencia Cathcart that if she doesn't write down the answers to five questions, he'll kill her husband. When she complies, he shoots them both anyway. Florencia dies, but Arthur merely hovers in a coma for months. Convinced upon his return to life that his killer's been monitoring his progress with a view to finishing him off, he persuades his neurologist sister, Evelyn, to have him declared dead. She agrees, although she's signing on to a long list of potential charges for conspiracy and insurance fraud, and Arthur, once he's erased from the grid, is free to assume the identity of one Alex Rimes and go after the hit man and his employer. He tires easily, he limps badly, and his vision is poor, but his skills as a freelance researcher turn out to be surprisingly useful, though he can't imagine why anyone would order the execution of either himself or Florencia, who owned a successful insurance agency. The trail to the killers leads through a wary arrangement with a retired FBI agent, an elaborate precious-metals scam and a society party to die for before Arthur finally confronts his quarry in a sequence that manages both to satisfy readers' bloodlust and to point toward a sequel. 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