Jackie Swaitkowski Books
The outside world thinks living in the Hamptons requires a Bentley, a face-lift, and a shingle-style home the size of Buckingham Palace. The truth is a lot more complicated than that. Dig a little deeper and you're as likely to find a saint--or a Mensa genius--as you are a deviant or certified nut job lurking right below the surface. I know this because these are my beloved clients. Meet Jackie Swaitkowski, a smart-aleck attorney whose legal turf is supposed to be the buzzing Hamptons real-estate market. But when a new client turns up dead, things take a sudden and decidedly dangerous turn. In a client's pocket is an envelope that contains a shocking piece of evidence that suggests that the death was anything but an accident. Jackie has bigger fish to fry--like her old flame Harry's surprise return to town--until a late-night car chase changes her priorities. Now she has every reason to believe that the next name on the killer's list is her own. Chris Knopf has been praised for his quick-witted writing and broad knowledge of the highs and lows of Hamptons life, and his books have been included on best-of-the-year lists complied by The New York Times , Publishers Weekly , and others. Now, in Short Squeeze , he brings an irresistible new heroine to center stage.
Jackie Swaitkowski may not be the most buttoned-up lawyer in the Hamptons, but a plane crash before her very eyes is hard to miss. Just before the struggling air taxi takes a nosedive, its female pilot tosses out a camera case. To Jackie, the accident’s only witness, the case (so to speak) seems meant for her. The camera's memory card holds an unusual set of photos. Jackie recognizes more than a few of the faces in those pictures. Are they telling her the story of the crash? The pilot, a hard-nosed biker chick named Eugenie Birkson, came from a family tree filled with ex-cons, and boasted a passenger list packed with high society. And Jackie soon learns that solving the mystery of Eugenie’s death will mean uncovering some dark secrets from her own past as well. All this and a freshly revived romance with gentle giant Harry Goodlander, and Jackie yet again has her heart and her hands full. Award-winning mystery writer Chris Knopf returns to Southampton, a one-of-a-kind small town where the rich and the rest of us rub shoulders on a daily basis, generating all the frictions that might imply.
Crazy weather, crazy artists, organized crime, and digital wizardry all play a role in a murder mystery that could only happen in the Hamptons. It's the worst winter on record. Jackie Swaitkowski has made the transition from lackadaisical, pot-smoking real-estate lawyer to obsessive, pot-smoking criminal defense attorney. And now, not only are there blizzards to contend with, her ne're-do-well client is headed for a first-degree murder rap. The case pulls Jackie reluctantly back into her late husband's extended, and famously outrageous, family. Complicating matters is a handsome journalist whose interest in Jackie exceeds the professional. Ice Cap marks the return of Jackie Swaitkowski, outlandish lawyer to the rich and criminal, by award-winning author Chris Knopf, who's been praised by Publishers Weekly for his "hard-boiled dialogue worthy of Elmore Leonard or John D. MacDonald."