Customer Reviews

Pretty Dead (Jack McMorrow Mystery Series)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was my first Jack McMorrow book, and I am so hooked that I MUST get the rest! Boyle's attention to character development; his taking time to introduce all of the characters in a way that sets the hooks into the reader; the tantalizing options available for the story line to go; all make this book, Pretty Dead an excellent read.

Jack McMorrow works as the Maine stringer for the New York Times. His girlfriend, Roxanne Masterson is a social worker. Roxanne's latest case is a daughter of wealthy, powerful couple who has been reported as having suspicious bruises. Jack goes along with Roxanne when she first goes to interview the parents, David and Maddie Connelly. After meeting the couple, liking them, and finding a genuine concern on behalf of their daughter, Jack and Roxanne are drawn in to the Connelly's inner circle. When young woman that they met at the Connelly's is later found murdered, Jack tries to track down the murderer. It's not an easy job and the deeper he digs the more question arise. He has a long list of suspects including David and Maddie.

Boyle populates his book with well-drawn, quirky characters highlighted with an excellent supporting cast. The plot is extremely well paced with the suspense building evenly throughout the book. Boyle hooks the reader in and does not let go until the last page.

Absolutely loved this book. Set in Maine, beautifully described Blue Hill, oops, Blue Harbor and surrounding area and people. Boyle really captured the flavor of the place. This praise from a native. Got this as a present and have now ordered all his others. Kept me guessing almost to the end.

He works as a stringer for the New York Times covering the New England area while his lover Roxanne works as a field agent for social services. One day a priest informs her that a five-year old child told him (in her own way) that she was being abused. The parents are David and Maddie Connelly, a wealthy and prominent New England family, who don't have to work and have set up a foundation for worthy causes.

After interviewing the little girl and her parents, they discover that the abuser was an Irish au pair who they sent back to Ireland. Drawn into the Connelly's social whirl, they meet Angel Morelli, a beautiful young woman who wants a piece of the good life and makes sure everyone knows it. The next time Jack sees Angel, she is lying in a back road in Maine, a homicide victim. Jack is doing a story on this tragedy when two goons warn him off but Jack doesn't scare easily, a trait that could put him and Roxanne in danger.

Pretty Dead is an excellent crime thriller starring a protagonist who has a knight in shining armor complex. He wants, needs, and desires to find the killer of a young woman snuffled out before she really had a chance to live. It's impossible not to like a hero like him. Gerry Boyle has set up his story with so many red herrings and a surplus of suspects that readers will be eager to read it in one sitting just to find out how all the pieces fit together.

Harriet Klausner

Set in Maine and Boston, Gerry Boyle does excellent sense of place, interesting characters, particularly his friend Clair, involving plots and good red herrings. I've always enjoyed this series and this is one of the best.

This is another of those stories about Jack, the newspaper reporter who gets involved in the articles he writes. Here, he is writing a historical novel about Boston and Maine during the Revolution. He and Roxanne conspire as they travel Knox Ridge and Bar Harbor about this "Angel" who is pretty dead, but she had been his Achilles' heel. A few beers, the wrong woman."Non c'e rispetto per I morti" (No respect for the dead). "I think for a nice girl, Angel sure stirred the pot" and ended up in a grave out in a grassy plot among the trees. She pushed a little too far and became a liability. She'd been a lovely lady and so sweet until she became involved with the wrong man.

It is kind of a Cinderella story in reverse. After fooling a lot of people, she ends up murdered; and Jack is on the case. He and Roxanne end up at an outdoor Jazz show near Marketplace, similar to our Market Square, and out there near Paul Revere's Place. It brought back memories of the pirate days, Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, as they conspire together to put the blame for Angel's death on Ms. Kind instead of Mr. Connelly who was well accustomed to jealous gossip and rumors, and tries to bury this scandal. The wooden cross was not of fire, but should have been.

Things like this happen every day from Knoxville, Tennesse, to Ireland with much intrigue and dangerous situations along the way. They feel that the world is basically a good place, but some people aren't. I feel it is the other way around and "not everybody is an angel." Boyle is a former newspaper reporter and columnist and editor of a magazine, just like another Jack I know. Only he writes about the past crimes like bank robbers and such in a rusty old town and not exciting places like this.