Press

May 12th, 2010

Three days, three views of Damaged Goods

Stories by an old friend and new ones. I met Bob Keyes from the Maine Sunday Telegram at Arabica coffee shop in Portland. Dan Harrington from the Capitol Weekly and I met at the Chin-ah Dinah in my home town. And Abbie Curtis of the Bangor Daily News and I had a great chat at a coffee shop in Belfast. Her story was interesting.

Dan does a series on Maine icons. I’m not one, but I am absolutely thrilled to be lumped in with Maine legendary boxer Joey Gamache. I mean, is that cool or what? Check it out.

Bob covers the arts for the Portland newspapers. He’s a rock solid reporter and a good guy. Here’s his Q&A.

Abby covers Knox County, Maine. The whole thing. She’s a gamer. Talking with her encouraged me about the future of the newspaper biz.

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May 12th, 2010

Farfetched? I don’t think so

In Belfast, Maine (where I’ll be signing DAMAGED GOODS on Friday, 1-3, Mr. Paperback), a reviewer for one of the local papers noted the resemblance between fictional Galway, Maine, and the real Maine mid-coast city named for a city in Northern Ireland. And yes, DAMAGED GOODS does take place in a place that is physically modeled on Belfast, Maine.

But I’ve populated my fictional version with fictional characters, from Jack and Roxanne, to the prostitute who opens up shop on Main Street, to the backwoods Satanist who targets Roxanne, Jack, and their daughter Sophie. The reviewer liked the story but put in one of those smiley things at the notion of a Satanist living in our midst. Those writers and their imaginations!

Is there really a Satanist in the woods around Belfast, Maine. I don’t know. I do know that a white supremacist group was handing out literature just upriver in Bucksport just this week. Good story about it in the Bangor Daily News.

Maybe DAMAGED GOODS isn’t that far off.

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May 5th, 2010

207 and DAMAGED GOODS

Had a nice chat last week with Rob Caldwell, “207″ TV host, about DAMAGED GOODS, Jack McMorrow, and why I do this. Talking with Rob is always fun and interesting. Check it out .

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April 26th, 2010

Powers of Perception

There are good reviews and bad reviews, cursory ones and some that offer something that the writer hadn’t considered. The latter is the case with a review of DAMAGED GOODS by Beth Kannell, co-owner of (with her husband Dave) Kingdom Books, a specialty mystery bookshop in northeastern Vermont. Kingdom Book is one of those small stores that pack a powerful punch in terms of the love the proprietors have for writing and books.

But back to perception. Beth had some interesting thoughts on Jack and Roxanne in DAMAGED GOODS. But it was her take on their ex-Marine friend Clair that gave me pause.

“Clair’s background as a soldier in Vietnam becomes significant, not just for his ability to take up arms and his willingness to be at Jack’s back or front or whatever it takes, but also for his experience with the personal effects of violence, whether done to you or done by you. Sane and strong, Clair helps Jack maneuver and respond to the chaos around him, showing the best of what war can do to a person’s thought processes.”

What does war do to a person’s thought processes? We hear, justifiably so, about the emotional and physical trauma of combat. But what of the strengths that come from the experience? In Clair’s case, he has become wiser, more philosophical, but also more analytical. When things get tough, as they inevitably do when Jack and Clair get together, Clair becomes calmer, cooler, more collected. It’s a trait honed in the jungles and highlands of Vietnam, when, as a Force Recon Marine, those were essential survival skills. Now the same skills are brought to bear for Jack and Roxanne, their daughter Sophie. The best of what war can do …. Interesting.

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February 25th, 2010

A Current Q&A

I was in Biddeford, Maine March 4 to give a talk at McArthur Public Library, Good times!

A pleasant reporter at the paper there asked me a few questions and I answered the best I could, about DAMAGED GOODS, Jack McMorrow’s longevity (we’re both still kicking), an erroneous fact posted about me on Wikipedia. Does anybody check that stuff? Anyway, the resulting Current Publishing Q&A probably has more than you want to know. But I’ll let you be the judge of that.

If you’re in the area, stop in. The library is pretty cool, with a great history. It’s website says, “Robert McArthur (the founder), was an Irish immigrant who had started working in a Rhode Island mill as a bobbin boy at the age of eight.”

Irish. Rhode Island. A mill town. It doesn’t get any better than that. Hope to see you there.

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January 25th, 2010

Gerry Boyle Author Page on Amazon.com

Check out my Amazon.com Author Page!

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August 26th, 2009

Maine Sunday Telegram Likes Brandon Blake

Brandon Blake (and PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN) got some press last weekend as the Maine Sunday Telegram called the book “one of the best mysteries to come out of the state in recent years.” A nice review by Lloyd Ferris, a newspaper guy who’s also a big fan of Jack McMorrow.

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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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