Lifeline

The tendency toward mayhem that goes along with life with Jack McMorrow sends his girlfriend Roxanne to the relatively stable urban center of Portland, leaving Jack with a sore heart and an ultimatum in the wilds of Maine. In an effort to clean up his act, Jack takes a job as a courthouse reporter for the Kennebec Observer. What seems like the safe choice turns out to be anything but when Jack is drawn into a domestic abuse case that leaves a woman dead and McMorrow tangled in a messy web of innuendo, conflicted emotions, and mortal danger. It’s time for Jack to grow up, but can he do it? Is it his destiny to follow his subjects into a life of rancor and violence, or will he be able to escape the call of his darker side and find some measure of peace? Only the future knows.

Like many crime novelists, Gerry Boyle began his writing career in newspapers—the best training ground ever. After Colby College, he knocked around, including stints as a roofer, a postman, and a manuscript reader at a big New York publisher. His first reporting job was with a weekly in the paper mill town of Rumford, Maine. After a few months it was on to the (Waterville, Maine) Morning Sentinel, where editors learned early on that he worked best when left to his own devices. He wrote about stuff he saw in police stations, courtrooms, in the towns and cities of Maine. Deadline came out in 1993. With an assist from Robert B. Parker, he landed a top-flight literary agent and the books came steadily after that. McMorrow and Boyle grew up together, though at different rates.