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Enjoyable series entry

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
4 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 09-26-22

Lifeline is the 3rd book in author Gerry Boyle's Jack McMorrow series. McMorrow is a former New York Times reporter, who is now living in Maine, with his days of burning ambition and career building behind him. He still has a nose for a story though.

McMorrow takes a part-time gig as a court reporter for a local paper. His first report concerns a domestic abuse victim who is seeking the court's protection from a drunken boyfriend. Boyle's report on Donna Marchant, ruffles a few feathers at the newspaper, with the powerful local prosecutor who seems to run the court as her local fiefdom and with the boyfriend himself.

Threats of violence follow and after an escalation involving further menace - physical and verbal - to Donna and McMorrow, Donna winds up dead. McMorrow feeling compelled by guilt and a sense of responsibility continues the search for answers, not believing the police narrative of the boyfriend's obvious guilt.

I found this book a lot more absorbing and interesting than the first couple in the series. This time around we either get where we're going a bit quicker, or maybe I've gotten used to Boyle's storytelling and was invested enough in the tale to enjoy the journey.

I like McMorrow as a character. There's a tenacity and resilience about him. He's experienced and very capable as a reporter, which isn't necessarily the kind of journalist which the Kennebec Observer is looking for. The editor just wants to do non-reporting and to ruffle no feathers. Jack's style isn't a good fit and serves to enliven the local newsroom. He's loyal to his girlfriend, who incidentally has just moved further away from him for work purposes. He's feeling a bit abandoned here and is jealous of the new friendships his girlfriend is making in Portland. He does also have a fondness, if not exactly a reliance on a beer or two at the end of a day.

McMorrow tackles the boyfriend, the victim's sister, and the ex-husband in a bid to get to the truth. He does the hard yards tracking down witnesses and accounts which the police don't seem to have covered. He stands up to bullies and intimidation and eventually uncovers the truth behind Donna's death.

I liked the twists in the story. I had a feeling the outcome was heading in a certain direction, but Boyle wrong-footed me while keeping the outcome plausible. I enjoyed the narration from Michael A. Smith.


4 from 5

Bloodline and Deadline have been previously enjoyed.
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Read - (listened to) August, 2022
Published - 1996
Page count - 360 (11 hrs 18 mins)
Source - Audible purchase
Format - Audible

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Really enjoyable

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
4 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 04-26-22

Another enjoyable early Lawrence Block outing. I wonder if I'll ever catch up with his entire back catalogue? Probably not, but it won't be for the want of trying. I think if I was restricted to reading only one author's books for the rest of my life, Block's my man.

Candy is a femme fatale and bad news for Jeff Flanders. As soon as the two cross paths, Flanders' brain heads south to his skiddies and from then on he's pretty much doomed. You just know things aren't going to end well. Following their descent to mutual destruction is great fun though.

Candy is a handful. Physically, she's nearly everyman's dream. Emotionally, maybe not. She's driven and very single-minded. She knows exactly what she wants from life - luxury and to be kept. She's happy to use her ample attributes to help her get it. And it doesn't matter too much which way she has to swing to get it.

Jeff Flanders never really stood a chance.

Entertaining, funny, and in one particular scene, pretty brutal as madness takes over.

Great characters, great dynamics, an interesting set-up and story, with an outcome that pretty much seemed pre-ordained but was nevertheless executed perfectly.

4 from 5


Lawrence Block has been enjoyed more times than I care to mention. Fortunately I'm probably not even halfway through his tremendous output. The good times will be rolling for a while yet.

Read - (listened to) January, 2022
Published - 1960
Page count - 190 (3 hrs 16 mins)
Source - Audible purchase
Format - Audible

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Not great

Overall
3 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 04-20-22

One that had its moments but which overall I liked a bit less than I expected to. The grit and grimness of the blurb led me to believe this one was right up my dark alley, but for whatever reason (and I don't think it was the narration that was the problem) it just didn't work for me.

A couple of recovering addicts are manoeuvred and manipulated by an older relative. The end.

Ok, there was a lot more going on than that and the timeline flip flops backwards, forwards, maybe sideways. I got a bit consufed or confused after a while.

Jeremy is the controlling cousin of Tommy. Tommy loves Paulie. Tommy's mum isn't that great a help to him. Jeremy by turns is either incredibly kind and generous, or a massive douche bag. His drug dealing sees Tommy, Paulie and their infant kidnapped and in real jeopardy. Along the way and prior to or maybe after (can't remember, don't know, don't really care) we have a few encounters with Jeremy's enemies and we end up with a couple of corpses. The climax/ending/outcome I can't actually recall.

Maybe I'm being harsh and it was a case of wrong book, wrong time and perhaps I would have liked it better if I'd listened to it a week before or a week after. Maybe I'll try it again when I've exhausted all the other books in my Audible library.

Usually a Canadian setting works for me and I like a visit to Vancouver. On this occasion perhaps if the story had been told in a linear fashion and our main character, Tommy hadn't appeared to be quite so passive I would have enjoyed it more.

2.5 stars from 5

Read - (listened to) January, 2022
Published - 2005
Page count - 298 (7 hrs 33 mins)
Source - Audible purchase
Format - Audible

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Down and dirty, my kind of book

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 02-07-22

Lean, mean, down and dirty and my kind of book.

A dingy motel and a dead prostitute and our main character - the night manager, Travis Whyte finds himself jobless and possibly in the crosshairs of a killer. Unless he turns the tables and finds him first. Chuck in a bit of aggro from the cops as well.

A bent cop - Olsen; missing people - Katya, Perry and Billy; a PI gig; another dead body - Billy; organised crime connections and shady lawyers; a new job - albeit somewhat temporary; an ex-girlfriend - Ahn; a new woman in his life - Babus; drug connections; nightclubs; tourist abductions; Russian crims; a dead protege - Paul; Sydney; Melbourne; football; backstory; a ruined career; family; an investigation; a pursuit and a bloody climax.

I really liked the main character, Travis Whyte. He's no saint but he's on the side of the angels. I liked his independence and his loyalty to his friends. I liked the quest for justice of whatever kind was available. He had the option of turning away from the hunt for the killer and having a relatively sane, ordered life but didn't have it in him to select the easy option. I think I was frustrated temporarily by him with this choice, but if there's one thing about making a character believable it's got to be the old adage - to thine own self be true. Travis couldn't have gone down any other road.

Fast-paced, sleazy, violent. O'Leary doesn't just show you the seedy sights of two of Australia's most famous cities, he drags you down into the gutter along with the losers, deadbeats and addicts that populate this engrossing tale. I needed a bath with a wire brush and Dettol once I was done with this one.


4.5 from 5

Excellent narration from Dan Schaumann, which after some initial reservations really grew on me as the tale unfolded.

Sean O'Leary's Wonderland was enjoyed recently. His next collection - Tokyo Jazz and Other Stories will be devoured soon.

Read - (listened to) January, 2022
Published - 2021
Page count - 260 (4 hrs 30 mins)
Source - review copy from author
Format - Audible

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Better than book one

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
4 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 06-25-21

My second time around with author Gerry Boyle and his investigative reporter, Jack McMorrow. I'm happy to declare that I enjoyed it a bit more than my first pedestrian outing, Deadline. Perhaps my expectations were lower, or maybe the pace wasn't quite so sedentary.

McMorrow is hired to write a piece on teenagers in the area .... low expectations, poverty, lack of ambition, lack of opportunity, delinquency, pregnancy, teenage parents, thirty something year old grandparents with the following generations repeating the cycle.

After a run in with a gang of lads - one in particular not too impressed as what he perceives is an outsider judging them - and lasses, he has a name to follow up on - a girl who despite an alcoholic feckless mother and an absent father, broke the cycle. She fell pregnant herself, had the baby, gave it up for adoption and went off to college to build a life. He contacts her, they talk.

In the meantime, McMorrow's house and vehicle are attacked in a drive by shooting and an arson attack. McMorrow feels the incidents are connected to the run in he had with the local youth. This reader didn't and was kind of frustrated at what I perceived as McMorrow's denseness. Maybe because I knew the book still had 7 or 8 hours to run and Jack didn't have that knowledge?

The girl he interviews gets dead, accidentally or not and McMorrow gets sucked into a police investigation where he feels like he is a suspect. He has a physical altercation with the guy he rowed with. Other things happen .... he carries on researching his article, he gets stonewalled by a fair few people, the dead girl's relatives subject him to some intense scrutiny, then satisfied want him to carry on digging and his on/off romance from the series opener with a woman who's name I forgot is resurrected.

I actually quite liked this. I enjoyed the dynamics of McMorrow's relationship with his friends up the road. They're good people who look out for him. I liked his interactions with the cops and I enjoyed the slow reveal as to what happened and why, even though I had twigged the raison d'etre for events. I knew the why, just needed to wait for the who.

Better than the first book and I'm quite positive about continuing with the series at some point. Lifeline, the third in a series currently running to a dozen books will be the next one up.

4 from 5

Read - (listened to) May, 2021
Published - 1995
Page count - 376 (10 hrs 55 mins)
Source - Audible purchase
Format - Audible

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Very slow, alright by the end but it took a while.

Overall
3 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 03-23-21

I've had an eye on this author's books for a while now without ever taking the plunge until now. I do like an investigative journalist/reporter type tale where the main guy usually fights crime by exposing corruption. Gerry Boyle has written a dozen or so books featuring his newspaperman Jack McMorrow.

Well I'm not saying the book started off slow, but I think I had a full length beard by the time I reached the end of the first chapter. By around the 100 page mark, it was touching the floor. In fairness things did speed up slightly after that, though my pet tortoise, still a bit sluggish post-hibernation was still moving at the speed of light compared to pedestrian Jack.

At the risk of repeating myself, to say things took a while to get going, might be an understatement. A freelance photographer who does some work for McMorrow's newspaper, turns up dead by drowning. The circumstances are slightly suspicious. The area the victim was found is quite isolated and there is no vehicle in the vicinity, so how did he get there? The police are tending towards suicide. The man had no close friends or relatives to care or make a fuss. Jack McMorrow is the only one who seems remotely interested, including this reader.

Eventually things get going. McMorrow and his girlfriend get targeted, physically and via distressing messages. We discover more about the photographer and what he may/may not have been upto. There's another major plot point concerning a story McMorrow is working on regarding the paper plant and their overbearing influence as the town's major employer and the pressure they bring to bear on local government and the town's tax revenues.. ie we can't afford to pay our dues, reduce the bill or we upsticks and relocate. McMorrow finds them pulling a similar stunt in other locations. Is the plant or it's agents ie. disgruntled employees responsible for the attacks on McMorrow and does it connect in some way to the drowning death or are there other nefarious forces involved?

Read it and find out.

I'm not one for giving up on books. I always continue in the sometimes vain hope that things will improve and get better. I think if this had been a printed copy as opposed to an Audible book, my resolve may have been severely tested. It did get better. I did kind of enjoy it by the time we got to the end. I was interested in getting answers to all the different questions posed regarding the murder and the who, and the how and the why. I would have enjoyed it better, if it had been a much leaner, faster read.

3 from 5

I do have more from Gerry Boyle on the pile. I wonder if he gets things going a bit sooner in his second series book. Not rushing towards it, but I'll get to it at some point.

Read - (listened to) February, 2021
Published - 1993
Page count - 376 (9 hrs 48 mins)
Source - Audible purchase
Format - Audible

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Punk rock, anarchy, hacking and an FBI investigat

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 11-24-20

A fast paced thriller with an intriguing backdrop of punk rock, family history and current day anarchism. Our main character is Jay, an FBI agent. He is currently investigating some hackers who are causing mayhem by wiping out insurance debts. Each subsequent attack increases the threat to the economic stability of the country, irrespective of the rights and wrongs and morality of some of the companies suffering the losses. There's some real sleazeballs getting their comeuppance. While frowned upon and feared by the authorities, the actions attract some level of public sympathy.

Somewhat inevitably the crimes escalate and increase in ferocity ie murder and as a consequence the pressure on Jay and his unit multiplies.

I quite liked the main character, Jay. He's a loner and has several peculiar OCD tics which he has to enact, particularly when stressed. His part in the investigation, reveals to the reader, much of his past.... difficulties with his parents, a maverick upbringing of protest and rebellion, grief and bereavement, deep roots in punk rock and a strong bond with his sister, which fractured when Jay signed up to be an FBI agent.

As the investigation progresses and circles closer and closer to the old music scene he and his sister inhabited, our man is conflicted. Do his job, stop the anarchists and possibly do damage to his estranged sister or put absent family before duty. Uncomfortable family secrets are uncovered, a work partnership has potential for more, but only if he can open up his secret self.

As well as the quirkiness of the main character and his emotional baggage, I enjoyed the depiction of the music scene and the ground level participation in it....... band membership, gigging, touring, friendships, the collecting element and also the point at which for some people it stops. You grow, you move on, you depart the scene, you rebel back into normality and a career. The other fork in the road, you stay, you play, you live the doctrine, you submerse yourself in non-confirmity and embrace anarchy and you reject and despise the sibling that took the other path.

Family reunions can be fleeting and not always happy events, but blood can prove thicker than water.

Lots to like..... pace, plot, character, history, a nostalgic look back at a fascinating musical genre, which on this side of the Atlantic this reader embraced (albeit a dipping of a toe in the water, as opposed to a head first total immersion). There's a decent outcome to round things off. I'd be happy to see a second book with Jay Brodsky in the future.

Radicals was my first time reading author Nik Korpon's work. Irrespective of a sequel, it won't be my last. Old Ghosts and Wear Your Home Like a Scar sit on the pile already.

4.5 from 5

Read - (listened to) November, 2020
Published - 2020
Page count - unknown (6 hrs 45 mins)
Source - Audible freebie purchase after receiving a download code from the author
Format - Audible

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32 people found this helpful