Random Act

A Jack McMorrow Mystery, Book 12

By: Gerry Boyle

Narrated by: Michael A. Smith, Fern A, Marina Nelson, Robin Pechonis

Love is hell...or maybe it's just who we choose to love. After all, how do we really know who anyone is?

When Maine's favorite reporter, Jack McMorrow, heads out to the hardware store on a routine chore, little does he know that he's about to witness a senseless murder that will have vicious repercussions. With his instinct and nose for news, McMorrow chases leads that take him into the dark side of Downeast, the side the tourist brochures don't show. At the same time, his best friend, Louis has fallen for a mysterious blonde with Russian ties and a hankering for money and intrigue that could put everything Jack loves in peril.

In Random Act, author Gerry Boyle's 12th McMorrow mystery, everything seems like a coincidence?until it doesn't.

©2019 Gerry Boyle (P)2019 Anaba Publishing

Getting used to a different voice for Jack and Claire

Random Act is one of my favs. I always heard Gerry Boyle as Jack, it's an adjustment. I'm warming up to Michael.

Random

Another great one and perhaps the best in the Jack McMorrow Mystery series. Jack McMorrow, a free-lance reporter living in rural Maine, out and about early Saturday morning shopping for a new toilet at the local box store. As he pulls in to the parking lot another customer, a middle aged lady Lindy Hines, pulls in beside him. As they leave their cars and head into the store Lindy, in a friendly mood, tries to engage Jack with some idol chit chat, but Jack, not wanting to be side tracked from his mission only responds briefly. Later in the store Jack hears a blood curdling scream from another isle and rushes over to find Lindy lying in a pool of blood with her head split open with a hatchet and store employees trying to wrestle a hatchet wielding raving lunatic. Jack, as a reporter, and now as a witness, is in a perfect position to write a piece on the incident, its perpetrator and its victim and determine if it is purely random as the police intimate or is there an underlying motive. Meanwhile Jack’s rich and influential reclusive Iraq veteran friend suddenly has his former eastern European high school girl friend show up out of the blue in a rented BMW after being years apart. She is seeking protection. Turns out she supposedly escaped a home invasion while her husband was killed. Jack is not taken with her and mistrusts her enough to covertly search car and discovers a bag of money. Gerry Boyle does an excellent job taking Jack through the resolution of these two parallel plots and delivers a surprise ending. I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

McMorrow Digs Deep to Challenge Easy Conclusions

Once again, Gerry Boyle has given Jack McMorrow a great story to pursue—with no pat answer in sight. When a seemingly random killing occurs in the big box Home Department store, he can't shake the feeling that a few more moments in conversation with the victim might have kept her out of the path of the man who would become her killer. To honor her, to do the right thing, he begins where he must—reporting and researching the story behind the event. Then, when an old friend of Louis's shows up—the only survivor of a home invasion, it seems—McMorrow is unable to take that story at face value either. McMorrow's quest for the truth puts him in conflict with those he trusts, as he follows his journalistic instinct and digs deep for answers. Boyle provides us with not only three-dimensional characters, but also a realistic picture of life and challenges in rural Maine, Narrator Michael S. Smith *is* Jack McMorrow—an excellent narrator who catches Jack's nuances, commitment to doing the right thing, love of friends and family, and willingness to fight for what is right, as well as a smart-alecky offhandedness when the situation calls for that.

The latest McMorrow

It’s easy to get addicted to this series of books. Any one of the books can be read, or in my case listened to, as a stand alone, but it is more fun to experience them sequentially. The author has a basic cast of characters, which grows slowly over time. It’s fun, but not always easy, to guess who will return in the next book. Each book has an interesting array of secondary characters which have a good balance between being familiar types and totally unique individuals. The narrator skillfully enhances the story with an inventory of voices, his own and those of occasional guest stars, so that the listener has no doubt about which character is speaking. Each book has multiple plots and sub-plots which lead to very satisfactory but totally unpredictable conclusions. For me, each book has been a figurative page turner, which has caused me to increase the circumstances under which I listen to Audible books. This book, the 12th in the McMorrow series, is a notch above its predecessors. Uncharacteristically, it ends with a loose end that makes the reader wish that the author would hurry up and finish the next book in the series.

twisted

The last person I would have guessed!! What the what!! The other manipulative questionable person Marta. Lewis is delusional and has savior syndrome. Smh. I'm hoping Marta dies, because she's all about herself. I don't care about her past. She keeps looking for a free ride and manipulates her way from one man to the next. A world class user. Marta was skeevy with her threats and sneeking around. Good riddance to bad rubbish. I voluntarily listened to a free copy of this and am giving an honest review. The narrator did a great job bringing the characters and story to life.

Two questions

Seeing a senseless act of murder leads him into a terriority he rather not be in. The other is his girlfriend, who is she really. Good Narration and plot Given audio for mvoluntsry review and my honest opinion

Enjoyed

Jack McMorrow is a man who seems to be growing in character with each book I read of his and, yet, each book stands on it's own. I love how the author starts with the beginning of the story and moves forward. We learn of each part of the mystery right along with the characters and the characters grow and develop right before our eyes. Gerry Boyle writes about mental illness in this book. Something that is often pushed to the back burner, but, here, Jack delves right in asking all of the tough questions and realizing there are more than one answer to the questions.
I listened to the audio book version of the book and Michael A Smith was the primary narrator with others helping. The story is not 'narrated', it is a story that was told to us by a narrator.
This is a well written, fast paced book. I highly recommend it.

Solid Mystery

This novel is two mysteries in one. The first has to do with the intentions of Marta, the new girlfriend of the hero’s close friend, Louis. The second has to do with his attempt to make sense of a horrific random act of violence. The two stories are linked only through the fact that Jack McMorrow is investigating them at the same time.

Jack is a newspaper reporter with what I gathered to be a violent past. He’s comfortable with guns and he and his friends are quite capable of taking care of themselves. While going to visit his friend Louis, he is accosted with a gun by Louis’ new girlfriend, Marta. She has a difficult past. Her very wealthy and abusive boyfriend has just been tortured, killed, and robbed by Russian mobsters and there is a great deal of concern that they will come after her next. She is a very cold and disturbing individual. She clearly came to Louis for protection and she has no concern at all that her presence might endanger Jack’s family. She expects Jack to protect her because he’s Louis’ friend. The longer the novel proceeds, the more disturbing Marta gets, especially when Jack starts poking holes in her story.

The random act of violence of the title is the better mystery, especially as Jack become the target of hostile acts as he investigates the story. A homeless and clearly unstable man murders a woman with a hatchet as she enters a store. Jack almost sees it happen and he can’t stop trying to make some sense of this seemingly arbitrary murder. I figured out what had actually happened very early in the tale and was disappointed that it took until the end of the book for Jack to even consider my theory, but that didn’t mean the mystery wasn’t a good one or that the tension didn’t rise considerably as Jack gets closer and closer to the truth.

Boyle thought through his mystery very well. His characters are well drawn and I liked Jack very much. It helped considerably that narrator, Michael A. Smith, did such a great job bringing the novel to life.

Crimes without apparent connections

Maine, murder, small-town, journalist, crime-fiction

A Jack McMorrow is a freelance journalist in Maine after a previous career in NYC. He has built a good life for himself, but the oddest complex occurrences fall into his path and sometimes he truly fears for his life. After the first murder it appears as if Jack is being targeted but the rest of the story is so convoluted that it kept me reading at intervals until solved. Loved it.
Remember-there are no coincidences in life or in crime fiction!
This is the first one with ancillary narrators, but Michael A. Smith remains the voice of Jack both in and outside of his head and all do a great job of interpretation.