Bloodline (A Jack McMorrow Mystery) - Softcover

Like many crime novelists, 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 (thumbs up for the roofer gig, thumbs down on the publishing job). 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. He continues to live in a small village in central Maine, with his wife Mary. They have three children.

Jack McMorrow is a former New York Times reporter mending his soul in rural Maine. But a man's gotta eat, so when an offer comes to do a story on teenage motherhood, Jack accepts. He starts with Missy Hewitt, a local girl who recently gave her baby up for adoption. She supplies Jack with several sensible reasons for her decision, but a couple of days later, she leaves Jack a message saying she wants to get her baby back. Then she turns up murdered, and before you can say phone trace, the cops are viewing Jack as a suspect. Meanwhile, Jack's investigation--it's a big-time story now--puts him in contact with all the various agencies and lawyers in the area who operate in the potentially lucrative adoption market. There are bucks in babies, and where there's money there's motive. This second entry in the McMorrow series is an improvement over the first, Deadline (1993). McMorrow is less a collection of traits and quirks and much more a fully realized character. There's also an intriguing cast of secondary characters who bode well for future McMorrow adventures. Wes Lukowsky