"[Boyle's] plotting is tight and his characterizations, for the most part, are compelling. Varney and Longfellow are richly developed, fearless yet sympathetic . . . Straw Man is a great book to take on a plane, to the beach or to bed if you don’t really want to sleep. Boyle is a deft craftsman and a wonderful storyteller. With Straw Man, he sets high expectations from the start, and he doesn’t disappoint."
––Frank O. Smith, Portland Press Herald
"The storytelling is superb, the pacing taut and the emotions elicited by events very real."
––The Miramichi Reader
"[Gerry Boyle's journalist] experience that adds a lot of authenticity to his stories. He’s an extremely talented writer, with an unerring ear for dialogue and an eye that takes in and faithfully renders on a page all the features of his chosen home in rural Maine, the poverty and the natural beauty noted with reportorial veracity. Those skills make his star character both intriguing and believable."
––Georgeann Davis, The Free Press of Midcoast Maine
"The plot in Straw Man is intense. Very intense. There’s lots of murder and mayhem, intrigue and mystery. . .”
––George Smith, georgesmithmaine.com
"Deftly drawn characters and a strong sense of place add texture and depth to this gritty tale of rural crime and vigilante justice. Jack and Roxanne’s marital strife imbues even otherwise mundane scenes with tension, and Jack’s journalistic research into Old Order Mennonites and private gun sales paves the way for thoughtful discussions regarding religion, faith, and the cycle of violence."
––Publisher's Weekly
Gerry Boyle is a rare author — a true grandmaster of suspense. It’s no wonder his latest, Straw Man, is unforgettable [. . .] This hypnotically suspenseful, beautifully written novel is impossible to put down!
––Gayle Lynds, New York Times bestselling author of The Assassins
"Jack McMorrow gets into some vicious fights in Straw Man, Gerry Boyle’s new mystery in his rugged series set in the wilds of Maine. Take the bone-crunching brawl that Jack and his military-trained friends, Clair and Louis, get into when they run across four big guys with chain saws poaching hardwood trees on an old woman’s land. The repercussions of that little scuffle not only complicate the onetime newspaper reporter’s freelance assignment on private gun sales in Maine, but also endanger his family.
"The most hurtful fights, though, are those clenched-teeth exchanges with his wife, Roxanne, over an elementary-school project on pacifism that has her working closely w ith the soft-handed gentleman goat farmer who owns Heaven Sent Farm. (“Must be cashmere goats,” Jack notes.) The difficulties facing peaceful people who must live in a violent world are revisited when Jack tries to write a story on a community of Old Order Mennonites. But, as Clair says when he hands Jack a Glock with an extra clip and two boxes of ammo: “I’m all for pacifism. . . . But I’m not gonna die for it.”
––The New York Times
"Gerry Boyle's action-packed storytelling never slows down in Strawn Man. Every couple of pages there's a new twist, and the suspense keeps twisting tighter [. . .] You don't need to read any of the other Jack McMorrow books before this one––you can ride the fast-paced plot and feel yourself twist and agonize with Jack all the way through, without needing to know what came before this. On the other hand, if you've been reading them all along––and most especially the most recent, Once Burned––the stakes will feel even higher, the danger more inescapable."
––The Kingdom Books Blog
"Gerry Boyle's McMorrow series sets the standard for original plots, gripping suspense, fast action and surprising twists. Straw Man has it all." ––Bill Bushnell, "Bushnell on Books," Morning Sentinel
