C. S. Rockwell

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.

Predicting the days of marijuana legalization, this, the fourth McMorrow story, delves deep into backwoods growing and drug dealing and the damage it can do when big, urban traffickers enter the picture. Jack alternates between the back-to-landers living communally on the outskirts of Florence, Maine, and confrontations with urban gangsters moving in on the product - and the people who Jack’s come to know.

On a travel story about Benedict Arnold, freelance reporter Jack McMorrow traces the route of the infamous historical figure up the Kennebec River into Quebec, Canada. When a man fails to rejoin his bus tour in the Northern Maine town of Scanesett, Jack makes a pit stop there to help authorities find him and soon finds himself entangled with a bunch of lethal small-town hoods who make bad sport of the weak and defenseless. Threatened, beaten up, and forced into a terrifying game of redneck hide-and-seek, McMorrow faces his most ruthless criminals yet.

Hoping for a fresh start and a clean slate, McMorrow has a new home in the cheerful-sounding town of Prosperity, Maine. But nothing ever goes easy for Jack, so when a freelance gig leads him to a teen mother and some high school hooligans, it's not child's play. A girl is murdered and Jack's investigation places him squarely in the killer's sights.

Meet Jack McMorrow, a hard-hitting crime reporter for the New York Times, now living in the backwoods of Maine, near the paper plant in Rumford. Jack's there to run the local paper, but when a unpopular photographer is found drowned in a nearby canal, Jack gets drawn into a complicated game that has kept members of the town silenced and in fear for their lives. Maine may be the place where life is as it should be, but McMorrow finds out staying alive may be harder than he thought.

Everyday cruelty is everywhere there are people. We experience its effects in our bodies, minds, emotions, spirits, and in our response. Author Helen Kobek guides listeners through the process of understanding how to deal with everyday cruelty while being fully aware of its power. By defining cruelty, examining how it affects us, delving into what makes it so painful, and then offering hundreds of strategies for dealing with it, Kobek offers this promise: You can deal with the effects of everyday cruelty without pretending it is not happening, becoming resentful, or giving up.