From Library Journal
While tracing the doomed 1775 journey of Benedict Arnold through Maine and Canada for a magazine article, freelance journalist Jack McMorrow encounters a more current story: a passenger “disappears”‘ from a bus headed for Quebec. When police seem adamantly unconcerned, Jack begins his own search, questioning witnesses, following others, and theorizing on motive. Research on the Arnold article continues, however, as do the ongoing woes of his girlfriend, who must contend with her mother’s Alzheimer’s disease. Historical tidbits about Arnold, thoroughly detailed descriptions of small-town Maine, and the missing-person case add up to more solid writing from the author of Potshot.
From Booklist, Thomas Gaughan
Freelance writer Jack McMorrow is retracing Benedict Arnold’s ill-fated incursion into Quebec for a travel article when his nose for a better story twitches in Scanesett, Maine. It seems a man stepped off a tour bus at a comfort stop in Scanesett and disappeared in an instant. But the more questions McMorrow asks, the weirder the locals become. He keeps poking around and, in short order, is the target of a dangerous, extended family of mouth-breathers and a hostile police chief who hates reporters. Author Boyle’s best work comes in lovely, evocative passages about rural, remote Maine; the horrific story of Arnold’s doomed effort to bring Quebec into the war against the British; and McMorrow’s ruminations about mortality.
From Kirkus Reviews
Freelance journalist Jack McMorrow thinks he’s come to little Scanesett, Maine, to research Benedict Arnold’s 1775 trek to attack the fortifications of Qubec. But when he picks up the scent of a mystery man–one “P. Ray Mantis”–who got off the tour bus from Boston for lunch in Scanesett and never got back on, he’s off and running in a new direction, even though his editor’s increasing anxiety about the Arnold article guarantees that Jack will be running in two directions at once. . . . Jack’s fourth (Potshot, 1997, etc.) features as much sound and fury as a summer movie blockbuster.
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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