Gerry Boyle was born in Chicago where his paternal grandparents settled as young Irish immigrants. His father and mother moved to Rhode Island when Boyle was a toddler. He had a comfortable, middle-class upbringing there, with lots of siblings and books. After graduating from high school in Warwick, R.I., Boyle attended Colby College in Waterville, Maine, where he studied literature. He also wrote short stories and poetry. It was his first taste of writing and of Maine and he was hooked.

Boyle left Maine for a time, but returned and landed a job with the Rumford Falls Times, a small weekly newspaper in Rumford, a paper-mill town not unlike Androscoggin (Deadline). Boyle's beats at the paper included high school wrestling, for which he was eminently unqualified. The newspaper survived despite all odds.

After a few months, Boyle moved to the Morning Sentinel, a daily newspaper in Waterville, Maine. He worked as a reporter but soon became a fulltime columnist. He left the newspaper in 1999, continuing to write an occasional column until 2001.

Many of Jack McMorrow's adventures began with Boyle's experiences roaming around Maine looking for a good story. The first McMorrow novel, Deadine, was published in 1993 by North Country Press in Maine. Two years later Bloodline was published by Putnam. Since then Boyle has produced a new McMorrow mystery every year or two. He became editor of the Colby college magazine (www.colby.edu/mag) in 2000, which allows him to continue to do journalism.

Boyle is married to the former Mary Victoria Foley, a teacher. They have three children. The family lives in a small village in Central Maine, though Boyle makes frequent book-research trips, sticking to his pledge to never send McMorrow anywhere his creator hasn't been.