Once Burned

Starred review from March 2, 2015
Plot, characterization, atmosphere—everything works in Boyle’s excellent 10th Jack McMorrow mystery (after 2010’s Damaged Goods). Needing a story to sell to the New York Times, freelance crime reporter McMorrow begins investigating minor cases of arson in the town of Sanctuary, Maine, anointed a “hidden treasure” by a travel magazine and about to become a real estate bonanza. But the fires grow larger as the arsonist’s self-control crumbles, while townspeople’s ugly prejudices emerge as they try to preserve their community’s seemingly perfect image. Meanwhile, McMorrow is increasingly concerned at how his social worker wife, Roxanne, is letting a disturbed young woman, Beth, insinuate herself into their home; Beth confuses her dead child with their trusting five-year-old daughter, Sophie. As McMorrow keeps stirring the pot, people start dying. Readers who enjoyed Robert B. Parker’s ability to create smart, convincing heroes with a tough-guy surface but warmly empathetic interior will welcome this worthy successor.

May 1, 2015
Jack McMorrow, once a crime reporter for the New York Times and now a freelancer, has moved to a little bandbox of a town in central Maine, just as somebody starts setting fires. Buildings are destroyed, people are killed, and to write about the crimes, he must investigate them. We follow Jack as, notebook in hand, he interviews anyone who might know anything. We meet the large cast: firefighters, detectives, a glad-handing real-estate salesman, an angry divorcee, a young man suffering from Asperger's, and a lot more. The author seems less interested in his story than in demonstrating that people are often not what they seem and that the surface of small-town life can hide evil. After a bit, the interviews, each one nicely executed, become monotonous, and McMorrow seems underemployed. There are good things herethe touching conversation with an old investigator slipping into senility is wonderful (and holds the key to the puzzle)but scenes tend to drag on. Still, there is plenty to enjoy for crime-fiction readers interested in character and comfortable with a slowly unwinding narrative.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)