Dark City Underground: Review: "Skin and Bones and Other Mike Bowditch Short Stories" by Paul Doiron
Showing posts with label Mike Bowditch series. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mike Bowditch series. Show all posts
Monday, May 12, 2025
Sunday, July 07, 2024
Saturday, June 17, 2023
Saturday, October 10, 2020
AudioFile: Narrator Henry Leyva on Paul Doiron’s Maine Warden Mysteries
Personal Note: This is an absolutely great series and one very well worth your time.
AudioFile: Narrator Henry Leyva on Paul Doiron’s Maine Warden Mysteries
Thursday, June 18, 2020
Review: One Last Lie: A Novel by Paul Doiron
Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch is in
Florida due to a background check on a new hire and a little more when he gets
a phone call from Ora Stevens. She is very concerned as her husband, Charles
Stevens, has not been in contact with her for over 41 hours. The legendary Game
Warden is not answering his phone and he had left her a rather odd note while
she was sleeping. Something has him stirred up and she thinks she knows when it
happened though what happened is a huge question.
During a recent trip, while they were
separated, she thinks something happened as when he was back with her his mood
had changed drastically. She thinks that he might have bought something from
one of the dealers though she did not see him do it. By the next morning he had
left, and she has no idea where he went or what he is off doing. Ora is very
worried and reached out to Mike as he is family and she is alone and worried
about her husband. Charley is the father
Mike Bowditch never had so there is no question he is dropping everything to
come back and hunt for his mentor.
That hunt for Charley is what moves
the plot and the action in One Last Lie: A Novel. Like the
changing beauty of the Maine wilderness, the past is a constant theme in this
series and it certainly is here. Whether it be the past in the form of his
father, an old girlfriend, a cold case, or his history with Charley, among
other things, looking back is a strong theme throughout the work. All those
hooks into the past can make the present a bit shaky even before somebody tries
to kill you.
Unlike many authors who has several
books and then seen to have some reads that are not as satisfying, Paul Doiron
continues to create intense and deeply moving installments in this series. One
Last Lie: A Novel is no exception as it proves in more than one-way Charley
Stevens is dead on right. He often is.
Publication day is June 30, 2020 when
the book will come out in hardback, audio, and eBook formats. I received an ARC
from the author with no expectation of a review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2020
Monday, August 25, 2014
Review: "The Bone Orchard (Mike Bowditch Mysteries) by Paul Doiron
It is late May and Mike Bowditch has recently done
what some in the Maine Warden Service have long wanted---he quit. These days he
is working as a fishing guide. That decision had many consequences some of
which were obvious and some that were not. One of the not so obvious ones, at
least to Mike, was the fact that he wasn’t available when his friend and mentor
Sargent Kathy Frost needed him the most. Instead, she was with a rookie officer
when dealing with the call about a troubled veteran who might be suicidal.
Unfortunately, things escalated quickly when Sargent
Frost and Danielle “Dani” Tate arrived on scene. Fearing for their safety they
were forced to shoot Jimmy Gammon. The same Jimmy Gammon Mike had known before
he was deployed to Afghanistan where he would suffer severe wounds thanks to an
IED. Jimmy died in his parent’s barn and
the officers are on suspension and being investigated.
The family is outraged as are many other people and
both officers are receiving threats. Somebody may have decided not to wait for the
investigation into the shooting to conclude. Who fired the shots at her home that
killed her dog, Pluto, and gravely wounded Kathy Frost is one of the many
questions Mike Bowditch intends to answer. He faces an uphill battle because of
his status as a civilian and numerous complications via various secondary
storylines. Sticking in his nose in things and being his normal obstinate self
is going to cost--- the real question is just how much.
Fifth in a great series that started with The
Poacher’s Son author Paul Doiron continues to bring the beauty of
the Maine woods alive for readers in ways that few authors can achieve. He also
mixes in plenty of mystery, adventure, and humanity making all the characters--
major and minor-- fully fleshed out people and not caricatures. Award winning
Paul Doiron has crafted another very good book in an excellent series that shows
no sign of stopping. Like all really good ones, this is a series that is best
read in order.
The
Bone Orchard
Paul
Doiron
Minotaur
Books
ISBN#
978-1-250-03488-5
Hardback
(also available in e-book
$25.99
306
Pages
Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano
Texas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2014
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Review: "Bad Little Falls: A Novel" by Paul Doiron
When you annoy the bosses once too many times and
you work as a game warden for the State of Maine, you get sent to their version
of Siberia. In this case, Warden Mike Bowditch has been sent to Washington
County. The eastern most county in Maine is well known for poaching, drug
abuse, high unemployment, and a host of other social ills. Not to mention the
brutal winter working conditions. Bowditch is being punished and he knows it. Just
about everything Bowditch has to deal with in his new assignment is made worse because
his considerable reputation precedes him.
The biggest place in the county population wise is the
county seat of Machias. The town barely has two thousand people. The small town,
as well as the surrounding county, is a place where everyone knows everyone
else, looks the other way, and pretends to know nothing. That includes ignoring
the actions of a local drug dealer. A drug dealer that soon winds up dead with
his friend severely injured by frost bite.
While others believe the friend killed the drug
dealer during a snowstorm, Bowditch doesn’t think so. Any shred of credibility
he had coming in was shot by his involvement in the case (never get romantically
involved with a suspect is rule one no matter what agency you work for), so he is forced to go it alone to get to the
truth. It isn’t the first time and won’t
be the last.
The series that began with The Poacher’s Son and continued with Trespasser just keeps getting better and better. This is a very complicated novel that continues to build on an excellent foundation while bringing further nuance and depth to the Bowditch character. Those efforts do not get in the way of the multiple storylines at work in this complex and multi-layered novel. Bad Little Falls by Maine author Paul Doiron and well worth your time.
Bad
Little Falls: A Novel
Paul
Doiron
Minotaur
Books (St. Martin’s Press)
August
2012
ISBN#
978-0-312-55848-2
Hardback
(also available in e-book)
310
Pages
$24.99
Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano,
Texas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2012
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