Short Story Wednesday Review: Blaze Orange: A Short Story by Paul Doiron

The latest novella, while billed on Amazon and elsewhere as part of the Mike Bowditch Mysteries, does not have a trace of him in the read. Blaze Orange: A Short Story by Paul Doiron is a prequel of sorts built around young Maine Game Warden Kathy Frost. With a year under her belt, the first and only woman in the Maine Warden Service has been transferred to a new district where she is still being ignored and treated like a rookie. Being the first woman in the service comes with a heavy burden and that is not the only thing she deals with on a daily basis.

 

Her new field training officer is Charley Stevens. Already a legend among all, he has quite a few years on her and, more importantly, an openness to her presence in the service. At attitude that is almost as rare as her status.

 

He shows up at her new home one Sunday morning seeking her company on a call. It is November and deer hunting season is well underway. Earlier today a man has been shot in the area of Wilton. He was shot and killed by a hunter.

 

The case should have been hers from the start, but nobody bothered to alert her. Instead, Charley Stevens has come by to collect her and take her to the scene. According to Charley, Douglas Ludwig is dead after being shot by Don Sands. Both the shooter and the victim await their arrival.

 

Charley Stevens takes her to the isolated scene being held down by a Maine State Trooper who is clearly less than thrilled to see the female game warned. The trooper has already decided it was clearly an accident.

 

Was it?

 

Or, was it murder?

 

That question is one that Charley Stevens and Kathy Frost work to answer as they investigate in this fast-moving read. During the course of this enjoyable novella, readers learn quite a lot about the background of Maine Game Warden Kathy Frost. The same figure that will play a large role in Mike Bowditch’s professional and personal life in the coming years.

 

Also included with the novella are the first three chapters of the upcoming book, Storm Tide. Having already read that book by way of the ARC by way of the publisher through NetGalley, I skipped the approximately 20 paged excerpt. My review of that book will appear here on the blog on the scheduled publication day of June 30^th.

 

As to this read, while I was very disappointed that Mike Bowditch was nowhere to be seen, I did enjoy the novella. Most of the background of the first female game warden  was already known to series readers, such as myself, so this tale just fleshed it out a little more. We also got to see Charley in action and that is always a treat. How successful this novella will be in attracting new readers to the series, since it does not have one whiff of the signature series character, I have no idea, but I did enjoy it.

  

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4nvqx7W

 

By the way, the image to the right is the only workable one I could find and it was posted to the author's Facebook account. Everywhere else, the image comes up as "webpage" and I have no idea how to make those work and only know how to use jpegs and card catalogs. My old Kindle does not look that good either. 

Because I thought the Dallas Public Library System was not getting it, I used a little bit of my funds in my Amazon Associate account to obtain this eBook. I should have waited as it is now listed in the Hoopla system through the library.

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2026