McMorrow’s girlfriend Roxanne, a social worker, gets the call. A child may have been abused, but not just any child. This is the daughter of David and Maddie Connelly, as in the Boston Connellys. Big bucks, good looks and a ton of clout. But the Connellys, summering in wealthy Blue Harbor, Maine, appear to have done nothing wrong–until Angel Moretti, one of David Connelly’s pretty young assistants, turns up in a shallow grave in the Maine woods. Are the Connellys good people or are they killers? McMorrow and Roxanne must decide before it’s too late.
The father suddenly held his hands out like he was quieting applause. He turned to me with deep sad eyes.
“Do you have children, sir?” he said.
“No. But I hope to.”
“Well, sir. You’re a smart man, to do what you do. Work for the New York Times and write about important people. We’re simple people. I have my business. I have my family. That’s it. And unless you have children of your own you can’t know how I feel in here.”
He put a hand on his chest. I watched him, wrote in my notebook.
“It’s like my heart has been torn out. It’s still beating, you know what I’m saying? But the pain is almost too much for me. And it doesn’t go away. It’s the last thing I feel before I sleep. It’s the first thing I feel when I wake up. It is the last thing I will feel before I die.”
He paused. The room was deathly quiet, and then someone sniffed and one of the sisters let out a muffled whimper.
“But the man who did this to my Angel, he’ll pay. He’ll burn in Hell and he’ll pay before that, too. We’ll make sure of–”
“–that the police find him and he gets the death penalty,” Georgie said. “They have it in Massachusetts now.”
“But not in Maine,” I said.
“Nobody in Maine killed my little girl. Angel didn’t know nobody in goddamn Maine.”
“She knew the Connellys,” I said.
In PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN, the first Brandon Blake novel, Brandon gets a full dose of bad guys. A brawl in a funeral home introduces him to Joel Fuller, a sociopathic hustler. Fuller is fresh out of jail and determined to take Brandon out—after Fuller and his sidekick Kelvin shake him down.
Rocky isn’t a tough guy. He’s a skinny little kid with crooked glasses, and he shouldn’t be homeless in Portland, Maine. When McMorrow and Roxanne pluck him from under the stomping feet of a gang of street kids, Rocky latches onto McMorrow–and drags him into a world of murder, both old and new. Why is McMorrow protecting Rocky? The cops want to know. Why is Rocky on the run? McMorrow wants to know. Why does death follow in Rocky’s wake? Jack and Roxanne need to find out before they’re added to the list. 
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