About Jack McMorrow

This is what is known about Jack McMorrow:

Jack grew up in New York City, where his father was an entomologist at the Museum of Natural History. After college, he climbed the newspaper ladder until he was hired by the New York Times as a metro reporter. He soon gained a reputation for going where other reporters wouldn’t, reporting on life on New York’s mean streets in 1980s. He was the golden boy of the city room when he stumbled, failing to disclose his friendship with a police source (COVER STORY). Reprimanded by his editors, Jack set out for Maine to do a story on a small-town weekly newspaper in Androscoggin. He’s lived in Maine ever since. His adventures have produced eight novels, with the ninth, DAMAGED GOODS, due out in a few months. In DAMAGED GOODS, Jack brings home an injured prostitute and Roxanne goes up against a backwoods Satan worshipper.

Maine, the way life should be.

Jack McMorrow lives on the Dump Road in Prosperity, Maine, a tiny town in inland Waldo County. When he’s not working as a stringer for the New York Times or the Boston Globe, Jack roams the woods, reads books, cuts wood with his buddy, ex-Marine Clair Varney. Jack has been with Roxanne Masterson, a child protective worker for the State of Maine, for several years, and they have a daughter, Sophie. Roxanne has seen it all, which is a good thing, living with McMorrow.

Jack has a reputation for tenacity, both in his journalism, and in his need to ferret out the truth. McMorrow also isn’t afraid to become physically involved in his stories—and to retaliate with force when threatened or attacked. Consider this exchange in HOME BODY (June 2004). Police are interviewing Jack after he intervened to snatch a street kid from an older hoodlum.

“What happened to him?” Cobb said.
“I had to kick him a couple of times. Pretty hard. ”
“Why?” Cobb said.
“He came after me with a bottle. ”
“So you kicked the crap out of him and took the kid and left,” Cobb said.
I shrugged. They looked at me curiously, like I was a museum specimen, something to examine from various angles. Then Cobb stood up and reached for the recorder. He clicked it off and the recorder’s red eye went black.
“So what is it you do at this newspaper, Mister McMorrow?” he said, slipping the recorder into his jacket pocket.
“I’m a copy editor.”
“Is that right?” he said. “What do you do if the writers spell a word wrong? Break their fingers?”

The Jack McMorrow Mystery Series

After the holidays

Hey all,

Hope your holidays were good ones, filled you with enough good will to power you through the winter. That’s the case in my neck of the woods. No big news. Continue to work on McMorrow No. 10, ONCE BURNED, and to follow the case of still-missing toddler Ayla Reynolds. Her dad, Justin DiPietro, has been talking to my alma mater, the Morning Sentinel. Something he said rang very true: “The truth is patient,” DiPietro told the newspaper. “It will come out.”

Just a matter of time.

One last thing. I’m blogging over at Maine Crime Writers today. A bit of musing on creatures of the night. You might enjoy.

Off the road again

Hey all. Last stop at Maine Maritime Museum in Searsport was a fun one. Great spot, nice people. Nothing else schedule for now so back to writing. Speaking of which, I’m over at the Maine Crime Writers blog today, talking about writing movie scripts. Check it out.

Me and Emmy Lou

A quick post today to catch up on a couple of things:

One, want to read how McMorrow No. 10 may be inspired by Emmy Lou Harris? Go to mainecrimewriters.com for the details. I kid you not. lt’s true.

Two, I’m going to let the PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN giveway go until Aug. 15. That gives the lucky recipient a month or to read Brandon Blake No. 1 before moving on to PORT CITY BLACK AND WHITE, Brandon Blake No. 2. Just comment. Or send in your name and email and let me know you’d like to enter.

Three, I’m going to be at the Wells, Maine, Public Library Aug. 16 at 6:30 p.m. Rumor has it that we may have a few advanced copies of PC B&W on hand. I can’t wait to hold it in my hand.

Four, we’ve had some disturbing crime in my neck of the Maine woods of late. I’m still processing it. There are days when I wish I’d become a cop. More on that at the end of the week.

Take care and stay in touch.

End of Story

Tying up loose ends here today. Some of you may remember earlier posts about the Bangor waterfront murder and its eery resemblance to the events in HOME BODY, the McMorrow novel. In the book, a street kid is murdered in a shack under the Veterans Bridge. In real life, Colin Koehler, 36, killed 19-year-old Tammy Boutilier in a “bum’s shack” under the bridge. Koehler slit the young woman’s throat in what was termed “a thrill killing” by prosecutors.

In my books, there sometimes is an unofficial death penalty. In real life, in Maine, there’s no death penalty so this week Koehler got life without parole. I read the coverage in the Bangor Daily News (they do a great job) with both great interest and tremendous sadness. Something there is about real life … as I’ve said.

Koehler says he didn’t do it, wasn’t there. At all. The jury didn’t buy it. At all. He’s got a long time to keep proclaiming his innocence. Maybe he thinks that will make life in prison a little easier. I doubt it. But as we bid him farewell, sent off to join the rest of the criminals who will soon be forgotten by the world on the outside, I can’t help comparing fictional justice with real justice. There was no McMorrow in the real city of Bangor, Maine. McMorrow lives in the Bangor of fiction, where crimes like these are dealt with swiftly and with certainty.

Is there something wrong with inventing stories like these, that are sad enough in real life? I don’t think so. I think we need to know there is a place where that can happen, even if it’s only in our imagination. I know I do.

Thoughts?

The problem with true crime? It’s true

“Oh, the horror.” —Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

It’s been a bad few days in my neck of the Maine woods. A couple of weeks ago a young man named Gordon shot and killed his wife in front of their two children, then shot himself at the end of a police chase. Then, yesterday, a man named Lake killed his estranged wife and their two young children. Then he killed himself. Police came before he could torch the house.

In both cases, marriages that had begun with joy not so many years ago, were in tatters. Children lived amidst anger and, at least in the second case, threats of violence. And then, in a last convulsion of spite and twisted logic, the families were destroyed from within. Survivors are shattered and will carry this horror with them forever. There’s no way to rationalize it, make it make sense, make it better. It is done. It cannot be fixed. Oh, the horror.

I read these stories with a sort of dread. I looked at the photos of the families in happier days. The picture of the Lake family in the Bangor Daily News shows the family on vacation. They’re smiling, entrance stickers to a museum or something stuck to their shirts. From that happy day to this.

I’ve written about domestic violence before, in my newspaper days, of course, and in a novel called LIFELINE. In that book Jack McMorrow befriends a woman who has come to court to seek protection from her abusive boyfriend. Her name is Donna Marchant. McMorrow tries to help her. It doesn’t work out very well.

Of all my books, LIFELINE has the most realistic conclusion. In the end, there is no knight in shining armor. McMorrow tries to salvage a bad situation. A child is spared. A bad guy is hauled off in handcuffs. The plot twists and turns and, in the end, snaps your head back. This is one where even I didn’t see it coming.

But there is no real justice in these sorts of cases, not in real life. In hindsight, these tragedies seem both avoidable (oh, if only we’d known) and inevitable. Protection orders issued by courts are just pieces of paper. They don’t stop bullets. They don’t stop someone bent on self-destruction.They have little effect on someone who wants to die and take others with him.

This is why I don’t write true crime books. In the fictional world of my novels, there is justice. There are bad guys but they usually get what’s coming to them. In the end, there is order, or at least a semblance of it. In real life? Not so much.

So after I read about true crimes like these, I retreat to the refuge of my made-up stories and my made-up friends. There are good guys and bad guys but good guys usually win. McMorrow is funny. Clair is wise. Roxanne is courageous. Brandon Blake is sincere and earnest. Mia is writing it all down.

If only s real life were like this. As Hemingway wrote, “Isn’t it pretty to think so.”

Tweet what?

Time to be honest. Every time I see someone has signed up to follow me on Twitter, I feel a twinge of guilt. And then a momentary jolt of stress. Because I don’t know what the Twitter follower wants to hear about. And I’m not sure my Tweets are interesting. In fact, I’m not sure this Twitter thing is working for me.

From what I can tell from other writers I “follow,” there are two options: tweet links to articles in newspapers or magazines or whatever. Or tweet what you’re doing at that moment. I’m standing in line at Starbucks. I just ordered pizza. Or on a more literary front, I just wrote five pages, I think I’ll take a break. Proofing a manuscript; isn’t it time for lunch. The other day a reputable writer tweeted, “I just stepped in cat pee.”

I needed to know that? I mean, life is too short.

This is what I could have tweeted today: I went to the dump, talked to the attendant about his old Volvo (we both drive them). I put stabilizer in the snowthrower and put it away. Pushing my luck in mid March, but what the heck. …I went to the library and talked to a friend about the book biz… I had chicken pot pie for lunch. Homemade. Leftover. I talked to my wife about taxes (always a good time). ..The driveways are muck, especially the one by the lower gardens… The snow is shrinking, but not fast enough… I listened to Car Talk in the barn. Liked the caller who keeps finding $100 bills in his recently purchased used Lexus. (advice: don’t lick them)… Put the compressor on one of the tires on the boat trailer. Starting to get boat fever.

To sum up, I could tweet any of this. But who cares?

Or I could do the writer thing: … Thinking about the new McMorrow novel, but I can’t talk about it yet …. going to a marketing meeting soon for PORT CITY BLACK AND WHITE at Down East Books …. galleys go out in a few weeks …. Haven’t seen the final cover design and getting curious … wrote a freelance story about the national toboggan championships …. If the national toboggan championship was NASCAR, my team entered an old Volvo … I’m mulling the plot for the new McMorrow; a few weeks from actual writing … In PC BLACK AND WHITE, Brandon Blake is tough beyond his years … His girlfriend Mia is starting to be a little freaked out … Speaking of handguns, Brandon and I are big fans of the Glock 23 … Hey, I write crime novels. I have to do this stuff. …I’m writing on legal pads these days. I’m screened out …

And so on. But is that what Twitter followers want to know? Isn’t it presumptuous to think that anybody out there would care? And who cares what I just read in the New York Times?

Let me know what you think. I’m needing some serious Twitter advice. 140 characters or less.

Just Say No to Drugs

I’m not offering unsolicited lifestyle advice, just paraphrasing something a book editor told me years ago as we were discussing proposed McMorrow plots.

This editor was pretty much hands off when it came to telling me what to write. But she said this with a vehemence that got my attention then and has stuck with me since. “No drugs.”

Her words have come back to me of late as I consider McMorrow No. 10. I’m in the mulling stage, starting to write bits and pieces, ideas, descriptions of characters, portions of the plot. Ideas come and go, some survive and some end up on the writing-room floor. This is the most mysterious part of the process: thinking, waiting, mulling, being taken off guard when an idea or an extension of an idea suddenly comes to mind. Do you “think” of these things, these fabrications? I don’t think so. I think you just feed in some raw material and then put yourself in a frame of mind to receive something back.

In the middle of the night. Driving on the highway. I had an idea today as I was driving in a snowstorm, ostensibly concentrating on keeping the car between the guardrail and ditch. And poof.

But no drugs. Yes, back to that.

I read a lot of newspapers, everything from my local weekly to Maine dailies to Al Jazeera. But it’s struck me of late that nowadays most of the crime in McMorrow’s neck of the Maine woods is related to drugs. People robbing banks for drug money. People robbing pharmacies for drugs. People doing home invasions for drugs (story in today’s Waterville Morning Sentinel about a guy who invaded a house, taped a woman to a bed. He thought a drug dealer lived there, instead it was just some random lady. Whoops. So long, sucker. Better intel next tie. Some people just aren’t cut out for a life of crime.)

Anyway, to my point. If 80 percent of the crime around here is drug-related, why not write a crime novel with a drug plot. The answer: drugs are cliche. Drugs are boring. People who commit crimes to feed addictions just aren’t particularly interesting. They’re like laboratory rats. Poke the lever, get the reward. Ho-hum.

Unless the guy goes to rob the drug dealer. Except she’s not a drug dealer. She’s a 65-year-old woman, living quietly. Alone. She goes to a drawer to get money and instead takes out a gun. Shoots him dead. Doesn’t call the cops. Loads him in her car. Drives him down a remote road in the boonies and rolls him out of the trunk into the woods.

Why not call the cops? Why not be screaming into the phone? There’s a man in my house and he was trying to rob me and I shot him. Come quick. I don’t know if he’s dead.

Because there is a reason she’s living quietly. Alone. There’s a reason this woman who lives with her cat, keeps to herself, moved to this country road because it was quiet and peaceful, keeps a loaded Glock 26 in the kitchen drawer. Why she was able to put a round in his chest, another in his head, that he was dead before he hit the floor. A reason why she’s burning the blood-stained carpet in her woodstove, that she’ll go about her business tomorrow as if nothing had happened, nothing at all. Groceries. A movie on Netflix. A romantic comedy.

Why? I’m waiting. Driving down the road. Listening to music. Waking up in the middle of the night.

It will come. And that’s why this business never gets old.

And the Winner is …

Bill Jordan of Portland, Maine, is the winner of the PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN giveaway! Bill, who was randomly selected from all of you who commented or emailed me direct, is a big McMorrow fan but has yet to meet Brandon Blake. I look forward to his reaction to the new series and to Brandon, Mia, and friends (and enemies). I also want to thank all of you who entered, from Canada to California. I appreciate your interest and look forward to hearing from you the next time around, when we’ll do another giveaway with PORT CITY DEATHTRAP, Brandon Blake No, 2. Blake is growing up. Look out!

While I have you, some readers who entered hadn’t read PC SHAKEDOWN. A couple of you wondered who Brandon and Jack differ. I’ve been thinking a bit about that of late, as I prepare to begin Jack McMorrow No. 10 on the heels of young Brandon, the rookie cop. There’s a bit of whiplash as I switch gears but I’ll soon ease into McMorrow’s world of the dark roads and hidden hollows of rural Maine.

I’m interested in what readers think of the two of them, their similarities and differences. Here are my thoughts:

McMorrow: tough, jaded, cynical on the outside but idealistic at his core. Self-deprecating, funny, wise, and a wisecracker. Self-destructive, though that tendency has diminished as he has grown older and become a parent. A sucker for the underdog with a kneejerk suspicion of authority. McMorrow doesn’t question authority, as the bumper sticker says. He smacks it upside the head (as they say in Maine).

B. Blake: tough, hard, independent, self-reliant. No use for the lazy, sleazy, or self-deceptive. Thinks drugs and heavy drinking are synonymous with weakness. (On a mission to nail every crack dealer in Portland, Maine.) Loves all things nautical, thinks the real truth is at sea, which is unforgiving. Aware that he is not the norm. A chip on his shoulder for having had to raise himself. Resents people who had it easy and don’t know it. Also those who don’t step up. Without role models, he came up with his own code. No whining. No lying, to yourself or others. Complete loyalty to those who are closest to him. Mia. Certain members of the Portland P.D.

Anything to add? Let me know. We’ll keep a list.

Clearing the Decks

I’m about to head off into Jack McMorrow land on this snowy Sunday, beginning research for McMorrow No. 10. It’s always a clean-start feeling, beginning a new book, wide open, full of possibilities. A year from now, if all goes well, I’ll have a McMorrow story in hand (and Brandon Blake No. 2, “Port City Deathtrap,” coming out). In the meantime, I thought I’d share a few other stories, from the ones that piled up around me when I was on the DL.

I read most of most days for the past few weeks, the books stacked around me. Some were in preparation for an upcoming trip to China (now derailed by injury, alas) and others were pure recreation. The China books were fascinating, taught me that our very different cultures are blending, little by little. In the future, we’re all going to be globalized. I can’t wait. And I recommend “Country Driving” by Peter Hessler, “Mr. China” by Tim Clissold, “Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper” by Fuchsia Dunlop. Excellent writers. Tremendous reporters. Amazing places. You’ll never read the words “Made in China” the same way again.

I also jumped back into Ken Bruen’s books, thrilled to find a couple I hadn’t read the first time through. “Ammunition” and “The Dramatist.” Good outing by Inspector Brant in southeast London, and by Jack Taylor in Galway. Think James. M. Cain in Britain. Tough. Funny. Furious. Writing as stripped down as a race car. You don’t dare take your hands off the wheel.

From there it was Stuart Neville’s second book, “Collusion,” which I picked up at Kingdom Books, Dave and Beth Kanell’s shop in Vermont. This one followed “Ghosts of Belfast,” another dose of caffeinated, streamlined prose. Neville’s hero is back, locked and loaded, and pitted against the one assassin good enough to match him. It’s New York City, Belfast, violence, doomed love, a book that moves so fast you need a seatbelt.

So good I forgot to eat lunch.

And then I put on the brakes (like the car metaphors?), thanks to my friend Andrea who kindly sent the shut-in a book called “Affinity,” by Sarah Waters. It’s a Gothic historical novel, set in and around a women’s prison in London in the 19th century. At first I thought it too slow-moving, the period language thick, especially after Bruen’s and Neville’s sandblasting prose. But then Waters began to put me under her spell. The plot centers on 19th century Spiritualists, a true phenomenon of the time, people (mostly women), looking to connect with the “other side” through mediums. The protagonist is a lady who visits Millbank prison as some sort of community service, gets involved with a medium who is locked up for frightening someone to death. It’s totally different from what I usually read, but beguiling. I’m halfway through and find myself looking for the book when I have an hour to kill.

So there you have it. Shanghai and Chengdu, Belfast and Galway, a prison cell in Victorian London. All without leaving my chair.

Now I’m out of the chair but off to Prosperity, Maine. A powerful thing, the imagination, no?

Thoughts from the Chair

I’ve had a lot of time to think in the past month, sitting in my chair, ice water pumping through the “immobilizer” on my leg, crutches propped beside me, Mozart cranked up. And of course, much of what I think makes its way into a book. So in the future you may see these notions pop into a Jack McMorrow or Brandon Blake novel. Most of life, as they say, is research.

* It’s a very vulnerable feeling to be stuck in a chair, hooked up to a machine, alone in the house. My wingchair is on the north side of the house. The side door, entering the kitchen, is just out of sight. The door to the woodshed and barn is behind the kitchen, way out of sight. Needless to say, I can’t get up. Or if I can, it takes a few minutes.

I’ve told friends to just let themselves in. If the music isn’t on, I hear the kitchen door slide open. The storm door shut. Footsteps coming toward me. I lean forward to see who it is. So far, it’s been somebody I know.

Maybe I’m getting paranoid, stuck here with my leg up, but what if the door opened. The storm door closed. I heard someone in the kitchen. I called, “Come on in.” My visitor didn’t call back. But I heard the footsteps coming this way. Saw boots. Jeans. Leaned forward. A stranger. And he’s carrying a …

* On crutches, the route to the car is through the woodshed and the barn, a long level walkway. There’s a door into the shed from the back. It’s held closed by an iron hook. There are three doors to the barn on the first floor. There is one on the second. Crutching my way through the shed, concentrating on the steps, planting the rubber tips carefully, I don’t look to my right, into the workshop. Where the door leans open. And someone stands in the shadows. Waiting.

* At night, I heave myself into bed. The ice machine is pumping. I’m attached to it by a long, thick rubber hose. Getting out of bed requires me to throw off the covers, reach down to the connector. I squeeze the two tabs to release the hose. Drag my bad leg across to the edge of the bed. Ease the leg over the edge, and propping it up with my good leg, slowy lower it to the floor. I reach for my crutch. Brace myself. Hoist myself to my feet. Elapsed time: thirty seconds. An eternity.

* Driving by, he sees the guy on the crutches, his leg bound in a brace from thigh to ankle. Looks painful. Looks like it must hurt. Looks like they must’ve given him some serious meds. Oxycodone. Oxycontin. Might be worth popping in, after the wife leaves for work. But maybe worth watching, make sure there’s no dog. No alarm. Nobody else in the house.

The next morning, the wife pulls out, takes off in a hurry. He waits. Makes sure she hasn’t forgotten something, gonna roll back in. Gives her twenty minutes, time to get down the road. No dog. The door to the house fell shut behind her, no evidence of it locking. He pulls into the driveway. Takes the carton off the seat, the one he uses every time. Speedy delivery!

The door opens. He hears the guy call. “Come on in!”

If y0u insist.

* So that’s what goes through your mind when you’re stuck in a chair. You write the stuff down. Think some more. Wonder if it might not be a bad idea to tuck a handgun between the cushions. Nice light Sig-Sauer .223. Just in case the next time someone cometh, it isn’t the Iceman.

Until next time …

PS I flushed the meds, fyi.