Read MoreHARD LINE is the novel in which McMorrow and Clair, and their buddy Louis, try to come to terms with what they’ve done, what they are doing. Why the relentless confrontation with bad people? Why keep putting family and friends at risk? What have they accomplished and at what cost?
McMorrow is back in ROBBED BLIND
Friends,
The 13th McMorrow novel, Robbed Blind, is out. I love this one, not that they all don’t have a special place in my crime-novelist heart.
In Robbed Blind, Jack McMorrow is seeing his world start to crumble at the edges. Reporting on a Maine mill city besieged by a serial armed robber in a zombie mask, Jack enters the world of nightshifters, the denizens of the darkness who work and lurk when the rest of the city is asleep. Sparrow, a pierced-up young woman behind the counter at a 24-hour convenience store. Riff, her dying punk-rocker father. Raymond, a solitary guy who has recreated his Catholic childhood in his home, now filled with the cast-off statues of closed churches. Meth-heads, a dirty cop, a refugee from the Portland P.D. named Brandon Blake (see the Port City series), who the street has dubbed “Shooter.”
On the home front, McMorrow faces off with the head of a backwoods militia, who loses face and vows revenge. Jack’s daughter, Sophie, is dancing on TikTok, wearing snowshoes and a bikini. As things close in on all fronts, McMorrow’s story is shelved after social media reports he’s carrying a gun while on New York Times business. “The gun thing is problematic these days,” he’s told.
The times are changing, and McMorrow is slugging it out the only way he knows how. He’s on his own for this one, which I liked. Clair and Louis off on a different mission. It’s time to see what Jack McMorrow’s really got.
Hope you enjoy.
PS I’ll be out and about for this one, starting Dec. 5, at 7 p.m. at the Greene Block in Waterville. On Dec. 15, also at 7 p.m. , I’ll be at the Yarmouth (Maine) Public Library. And Jan. 19 it will be the Lewiston Library at noon. More as the dates approach. Questions? Email me at gerry@gerryboyle.com
PORT CITY CROSSFIRE, print edition released!
Friends,
It took a bit longer than anticipated (tech glitches out of my control and understanding) but Brandon Blake is back in print. PORT CITY CROSSFIRE had been out as a e-book for a few weeks but the hold-in-your-hands, scribble-on-those-pages version is now available. You can buy it on Amazon or at your local bookseller. It’s available to them via Ingram, the book distributor. If your local shop doesn’t have it, tell them Ingram. They’ll know what to do.
I like Brandon Blake and I like this book. What really takes place after a cop pulls the trigger? I did some considerable research, talking to officers who did just that. Some recovered quickly. Some never put the uniform again. I’ll let Brandon explain his experience. And more.
Some good characters in here. Danni and Clutch, a repo man and his waitress wife bound together by a secret they can’t unload. Others I can’t describe without spoiling the story for you. But this is one story I think about a lot, long after the writing is done.
Hope you pick it up and enjoy.
Brandon Blake is Back
Hi all:
Just letting you know that the third Brandon Blake, PORT CITY CROSSFIRE, has just been published as an e-book, with the print edition to follow shortly.
This one takes the young rookie cop from the streets of Portland, Maine, to an inner torment that he’s never before experienced. This one is about a police shooting and Blake is the shooter (Might as well cut to the chase here). WIth his past (PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN and PORT CITY BLACK AND WHITE) run-ins with criminals and authority, Brandon is set up to take the fall for this one.
Suspended, left alone on his aging cabin cruiser, Bay Witch, he looks for a way to occupy his guilt-racked mind, and plunges into a case further down the Maine coast that may finish, not only his career, but his life.
This is a story about secrets, and the cost of keeping them. I liked writing it, and think I learned a lot about Brandon Blake that two novels hadn’t yet taught me. Sometimes characters just keep growing the more you peel the layers back. Brandon and I were both peeling layers back in an effort to get to the truth about people. We found that what lies underneath isn’t always pretty.
The Dead Samaritan
Hi all:
When I talk about my writing, mostly it’s about McMorrow and Brandon Blake. But I’m especially proud of a book called THE DEAD SAMARITAN.
This one was a collaboration with one of my daughters, Emily Westbrooks. It was published last year by Endeavour Media in London and I like to point it out because I think readers of McMorrow and Blake would enjoy it immensely.
SAMARITAN is a gritty crime thriller set in Ireland where Emily lives. It’s a story told through the eyes of an American travel writer, Sean, and an Irish adventure videographer, Nora. They connect on an assignment but are drawn into the plight of an African immigrant, Manny, after Sean intervenes as Manny is being mugged on a Dublin street.
It’s a harrowing tale of duplicity as Sean and Nora, pursued by both police and gangland thugs, move from solving a mystery to trying to save themselves.
Our collaboration was fun, interesting, challenging, and special. Emily is a skilled writer (mostly for magazines) and a gifted observer of both people and places. My contribution was mostly dialogue (Emily Irish-ized it), and we both steered the plot along its hair-raising path. This one flies!
Check it out. You can buy it in print and e-book on Amazon. You’ll never think of Ireland in the same way again.
In the Heart of McMorrow Country
Friends:
I just finished a month of visits to Maine libraries to talk about the new McMorrow novel RANDOM ACT, chatting with readers, introducing my books to new readers, generally hanging out. This is one of the things I like and appreciate most about the writing life—meeting people who, amazingly enough, share an interest in my characters. Who would have thought?
After more than 25 years it never gets old. And sometimes there are some amazing moments, like this one.
I was at the library in Liberty, Maine, a pretty village in Waldo County, in the heart of McMorrow country. Liberty is near Freedom, which is hard up against Prosperity, Jack’s fictional home. Jack and Roxanne and Sophie, and Claire, live on the Dump Road in Prosperity. It’s a quiet back road, surrounded by hundreds of acres of woods spread across Waldo County’s ripples of ridges and valleys.
When I’m driving through this part of the county, I can imagine Jack’s house, picture him tromping down a forest trail with Sophie, walking down the path to Clair’s barn. Mozart is playing.
But back to Liberty Library …
We were in the Q&A part of the evening, sitting back and having a conversation that jumped from Jack to writing to who would we cast in a McMorrow movie and back again. It was winding down when a woman to my left raised her hand. She said, “I think I live in Jack’s house.”
People looked at her a bit askance, but figured she was just a hardcore McMorrow fan. I didn’t. I said, “Where do you live?”
“Freedom,” she said.
“Where in Freedom?”
She told me. I said, “Are you an artist.”
“Yes,” she said, and I knew she did, indeed, live in Jack’s house.
When I was beginning to imagine BLOODLINE, the second McMorrow novel, I decided to move Jack from Androscoggin to rural Waldo County. Quiet, undiscovered Waldo County. I had a friend, Terry, who lived in the town of Freedom. He rented a rambling house from an artist, who lived in New York. I thought it was the perfect sort of place for Jack’s home base.
So for 11 books it’s been just that. Jack and Roxanne brought Sophie home there. Sophie’s room is up the stairs to the left. Jack and Roxanne have drinks on the back deck. Clair knocks and lets himself in.
But bad things have happened there, as well, as McMorrow’s enemies have taken the battle to him. The house has been set on fire. Armed Intruders have staked the place out from the back woods. Scary people have been found sitting at the kitchen table.
The owner of the house said she first became aware of her home’s fictional life when neighbors knocked and handed her a couple of McMorrow novels. They said, “We think you’d better read these.” She did. She said she thought of contacting me but was too shy. Was it her house in my books? Last week, she finally asked. The answer was yes, sort of. Prosperity exists only in the books, ditto for Jack et al. But she no longer had to wonder, and to flinch at some of the goings on there.
“I hated it,” she said, “when they shot out the windows.”