Short squeeze

A Hamptons real-estate lawyer hunts a murderer amid the mansions: "Knopf has . . . a great ear for the comic eccentricities of the human voice." —The New York Times Book Review The outside world thinks living in the Hamptons requires a Bentley, a facelift, 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.

Nero Award winner Chris Knopf's 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.

"Entertaining . . . a vivid setting, sharp characterizations and devious plotting." —Publishers Weekly

"Engaging hard-boiled crime fiction from a rising star." —Booklist