A reader named Rick, who lives in Belfast, wrote recently to say he’d just finished DAMAGED GOODS. Rick bid on the book and lunch with me at a fundraiser auction. DAMAGED GOODS, McMorrow No. 9, was appropriate because it’s set in the coastal town of Galway, Maine, which is a lot like Belfast. And I mean a lot.
So Rick and I ate in Darby’s Restaurant, had a very pleasant conversation, and a stroll around downtown Belfast to see some of the locations McMorrow frequents. Rick read DAMAGED GOODS that week and was kind enough to send me a note saying that he’d liked it very much. (Authors pretend not to need this sort of positive reinforcement but most of them are lying.)
But Rick’s first reaction was interesting. He said he could tell I was a birder because there are birds all through the book. And I suppose there are, though I’ve never sent McMorrow out with his binoculars and field guide. But my reporter protagonist is aware of his surroundings, natural and otherwise, and if you live in the country it’s very likely that you’re surrounded by birds. And if you know birds at all, you can’t help but notice what’s out there.
McMorrow and I share some qualities, I guess, and this is one. When I step outside in the early morning I look up at the sky, the woods, and listen. Often there are a dozen or more birds calling at once and I run through the list as I walk to the road to get the newspaper. Orioles, various warblers, sometimes an osprey, crows, chickadees, vireos, robins, bluejays, cardinals, thrushes, woodpeckers, sapsuckers. To some people it’s just a cacaphony, I suppose, a lot of chirping and tweeting. For me and McMorrow it’s much more than that.
So that’s the explanation for the bird thing. To me birds are as much of the landscape as the clouds in the sky.
One morning last week I woke up at 3 a.m. to a wonderful hooting sound. Outside, close to the house, a great horned owl was calling. Another answered. It was a territorial call, from what I’ve read and heard, some maybe there’s a nest nearby.
It was very cool. So don’t be surprised if, in an upcoming McMorrow novel, a great horned owl awakens Jack as well. Funny how that happens. Must be because Jack and I walk the same woods.
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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