GERRY BOYLE

July 1st, 2009

Booklist on Brandon Blake

The theme continues to emerge: there’s way more to Brandon Blake than we know yet. Booklist, the library trade reviewer, likes Brandon a lot. And they wonder how he’ll grow as we watch him in future books. Writes reviewer David Pitt: “We get the impression that Boyle has barely scratched (Blake’s) surface here. It will be interesting to see whether he takes Blake in the usual amateur-sleuth direction or if he has something a bit more unusual in store for him. Keep your eyes on this one.”

I have a general idea, as I enter the last two months or so of research: riding with Portland P.D., meeting some good police officers. Watching the waterfront scene. Thinking a lot about Mia and Brandon, how young people grow up together in a relationship. Or do they grow apart? What is it that keeps a couple together? What happens when terrible things happen all around them? Do they succumb to collateral damage?

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June 30th, 2009

Brandon Blake, act one

A reviewer for the Bangor Daily News weighed in on PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN, touching on what is becoming an interesting theme. Dale McGarrigle liked the book, which is great. He also said it was going to be interesting for readers to watch Brandon Blake grow. Exactly.

More than in the Jack McMorrow novels, I have come in early in this protagonist’s life. Brandon is just 21, shaped by an unusual upbringing. But he’s very much a work in progress. Mia is his first love; the collision with Fuller and Kelvin is his first experience with serious bad guys. Interesting to watch him be shaped, seasoned, and scarred by these experiences as well.

With McMorrow I felt I knew him pretty well the first time I typed his name on a page (and I do mean typed, as in on a typewriter). With Brandon, it’s more like I’ve made his acquaintance, understand him as he is today, but will watch like the rest of you as he grows right before our eyes.I think back to when I was 21, ready to take on the world but having little idea of where to begin. Blake’s got me beat in some ways; he’s had to make his way alone for much of his life. I had a sizable support team. But there are some things he’s going to have to learn the hard way.

PORT CITY UNDERGROUND, Brandon Blake’s next story, is in the reseach stage. I expect to begin writing in a couple of months. I’m looking forward to seeing him again. I expect he’ll be a little more mature, that he’ll be figuring out his relationship with Mia–and wrestling in new ways with old demons and some serious new villains.

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June 26th, 2009

Portland, Maine, crime fiction hotbed

One night, two crime-novel events, me and James Hayman. Portland was hopping. Blogger Amy Canfield hit both.

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June 26th, 2009

PC Shakedown on the Radio

MPBN radio (public radio in Maine) morning host Irwin Gratz was good enough to have me on to chat about PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN. Irwin said he’d finished the book the night before and enjoyed it. We talked and it was interesting. Irwin is quite thoughtful, as you might expect from Public Radio, and asks good questions. When the mic was off, he said he wondered about Brandon Blake’s decisions near the story’s climax (I can’t give away too much.). Irwin said he probably wouldn’t have taken so much into his own hands (and landed in the middle of a confrontation that involves much gunfire.). Interesting question and he’s right. People like us would probably would have just called the cops. But then we wouldn’t be the heroes in crime novels, would we. Are truly realistically drawn heroes possible? Are there heroes among us in real life? Something to consider.

Here’s the interview.

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June 24th, 2009

You’re Invited!

We’re going to get together Thursday, June 25, 6-8 p.m. to officially launch PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN. What that means is readers, friends, people from Down East Books, gather to chat, relax, toast the book and send it down the ways (boat term). So if you’re within reach of Portland, Maine, come to Custom House Wharf, right off Commercial Street, two blocks up from Dimillo’s in the Old Port.

The place is Harbour’s Edge, first white building on the left, across from Harbor Fish Market. If weather cooperates (stop raining for once!), we’ll be out on the deck, hanging out, having a drink. In the book, a bad guy named Kelvin gets stuck with an ice pick and pushed off this very wharf by a dangerous and seductive woman named Irina.

We’ll hope that life doesn’t imitate art. See you there.

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June 23rd, 2009

On TV, talking about Brandon Blake

I visited with Rob Caldwell, host of “207″ yesterday. The interview was fun as usual (though I’ll never be entirely comfortable watching or listening to myself; must be tough to be an actor); Rob is a good guy, interesting interviewer. He also reads the books, which makes things easier for all concerned. Check it out!

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June 21st, 2009

At a signing, a bit of inspiration

Readers often ask whether characters are based on real people, composites of several people, or made up our of whole cloth. Most of mine have some basis in reality, though almost never a single real person. A character trait from one, a mannerism from another, the hair and eyes of a third. But the person you create becomes real and after a book or two (or eight or nine) you forget the source of your own inspiration.

A signing this weekend brought some of this back. I was sitting at my table, chatting and scribbling when I looked up to see a woman, middle-aged now, a little more gray in her hair than when I’d last seen her, but she could say the same of me. She said she wanted to buy a book for her husband for Father’s Day. She asked me to recommend one.

I picked HOME BODY. I signed it for Neil. I was honored to do it.

Neil is a car mechanic, has his own garage next to his house. He does business in cash and on a handshake. His word is like epoxy. Neil is as honest, honorable, and ethical a guy as I’ve ever met. He would go through a wall for his friends. He would go through two walls for his family. He is smart and tough and resourceful. He is also very funny, knows a thousand jokes. He’d tell them during breaks in the garage, pausing by the workbench, lighting a cigarette, eyes glinting. “You hear the one about the minister, the priest, and the rabbi in the hot-air balloon?…”

Neil served in Vietnam. He came back not so impressed with governments so he tends to keep to himself. He works most of the time, six days a week, sometimes seven. When he isn’t working he likes to go fishing. He goes way up north, away from people. Trout streams, deep in the woods. He used to hunt deer but killing things lost its appeal after the war. He didn’t talk about that much. When he did, it was usually over a Budweiser or two. Sixteen-ounce cans.

I haven’t seen Neil in a long time, but I mention this here because he was a big part of the inspiration for Clair, Jack McMorrow’s mentor and back-up. I never told him that and I doubt he has ever read any of my books. But he might recognize his garage in Clair’s barn, maybe see a hint of himself in Clair’s quiet but steely resolve.

So hat’s off to the real deal from the guy who makes things up.

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June 19th, 2009

DNA doesn’t go away

DNA evidence has changed the way murders are prosecuted, with forensic experts up on the stand testifying that about the odds of the blood on the victim not being the defendant’s. It’s usually in the millions to one, which also has defense lawyers changing their tactics.

Case in point, Thomas H. Mitchell Jr., on trial in Farmington, Maine, for the murder of a young mother, Judith Flagg, in her home in 1983. It’s a classic cold case, DNA evidence coming up a hit with Mitchell, already doing time for an unrelated kidnapping and gross sexual assault.

So he’s a serious dirtbag, which doesn’t make him any less entitled to a vigorous defense. DNA has made defense lawyers’ jobs a lot harder, and in this case, Mitchell seems to be a lost cause. His father owned the house before Mrs. Flagg and her family; matching DNA in semen at the scene; had an altercation with the victim’s husband (over a lamp) . Cops say he waited until the husband went to work, then talked his way into the house, where he assaulted the young mom and stabbed her to death. Her toddler was found on top of the body.

Defense lawyers I’ve known have told me they take some murder cases, not because they have a ghost of a chance of winning, but because it gets their name on the front page for a week or so. They do their best for the defendant, who, guilty as son, is convicted anyway and sent away for 25 to life, and the lawyers see a bump in their business.

In Mitchell’s case, the argument is that the evidence was mishandled, the case is too old, the DNA could have belonged to Mitchell Sr., who lived in the house at one time and could have left his DNA around. From what I’ve read, they’d have to be identical twins to have the same DNA, but whatever.

If the DNA match is a few hundred thousand to one, I’d say Mitchell has about the same chance of beating this one. But let them play this one out to the last act, when this guy will almost certainly be shackled and led back to prison. He’ll take off his suit and tie.

Maybe for the last time. Maybe not. When it comes to DNA, what goes around, comes around.

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June 18th, 2009

A Preview

It strikes me that for all of the words here, not one is from the actual text of any of the books. So what exactly is that this guy writes? Just to the right of this post is a link to the first chapter of PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN. If that isn’t enough of a taste, let me know.

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June 16th, 2009

Where I’ll be

Used Book Cat We’re starting to schedule appearances. More to come in June and July but these are set:

Saturday June 20, Mr. Paperback bookstore, Elm Plaza, Waterville, Maine. Book signing and chatting, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
BOOK LAUNCH PARTY: June 25, 6-8 p.m., Harbor’s Edge, Custom House Wharf in the Old Port, Portland, Maine.
Hanging out where PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN takes place!
Tuesday, July 7, Curtis Memorial Library, Brunswick, Maine, 7 p.m. A talk followed by signing.
Thursday, July 9, Devaney, Doak and Garrett Booksellers, Farmington, Maine, 7 p.m. A talk followed by signing.
Wednesday, July 15, Kennebooks, Kennebunk, Maine, 6 p.m. A talk and wine tasting.
Friday, July 17, The Fertile Mind bookstore, Belfast, Maine, 6-8 p.m. Chatting and signing.
Tuesday, July 21, South Berwick Public Library, South Berwick, Maine, 7 p.m. A talk and signing.
Wednesday, Oct. 21, Lithgow Public Library, Augusta, Maine, 6:30 p.m. A talk and signing.

Stay tuned. You can also sign up for e-mail news of events by dropping a note to gerry@gerryboyle.com.

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