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.

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.

RANDOM ACT

This is another good book about Jack McMorrow. I have liked all the books in this series. In the last book I didn't like Roxanne, But in this book she's back to her normal. There's a couple different things going on. Jack witness a murder and it bothers him thinking he may could have prevented it. Clara and Lewis is in this book a lot. And a girl shows up out of nowhere, She's one of Lewis's childhood girlfriends. Shes running from the Russians and she has a lot of money. Michael A Smith does a great job narrating this book. He has a little help in this book. I liked the extra narrators. If my review is any help will you please click on the helpful link below. Thank you.

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.