Review by Booklist Review
Game warden Mike Bowditch isn't sure whether it's the climate or the area's unemployment and drug-abuse issues that are meant as punishment, but it's clear his transfer to Maine's Down East region is no promotion. Winter's first blizzard offers a taste of his new reality when a search-and-rescue effort uncovers the murdered body of a violent drug dealer. Bowditch is convinced that things don't add up when police arrest the dead man's best friend for the crime, but the game warden's new relationship with the dead dealer's ex-girlfriend has tanked his credibility. Bucking better judgment, Bowditch starts digging and through a combination of sharp curiosity and gut instinct, he's soon the only investigator making the connections. Doiron's third Bowditch entry is riveting and honest, with full-depth characters and a landscape that isn't cutting any slack. Readers of Nevada Barr and C. J. Box will enjoy this similar tale, with the added surprise of a refreshing hero whose youth and inexperience Doiron skillfully twists into an asset.--Tran, Christine Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The excellent third novel from Edgar-finalist Dorion featuring game warden Mike Bowditch (after 2011's Trespasser) finds Bowditch in Maine's equivalent of Siberia, depressed Washington County, to which he was transferred after he became an embarrassment to the powers-that-be by shooting a murderer in self-defense. Bowditch's strict approach to enforcing licensing regulations soon earns him the enmity of some locals, one of whom affixes a coyote's pelt to his door as a warning. One winter night, while driving home through a blizzard, the warden receives a call from the man at whose house he just had dinner, veterinarian Doc Larrabee, who needs his help with a person suffering from a severe case of frostbite. Larrabee reports that the victim of the cold, who appeared at a neighbor's house, managed to communicate, despite his grave condition, that he had a companion. The search for that missing companion involves Bowditch in a murder case with some truly wicked twists. Dorion matches strong characters with effective prose and subtle characterizations. Fans of Steve Hamilton's Alex McKnight series, likewise set in a remote region close to Canada, will find a lot to like. Author tour. Agent: Ann Rittenberg, Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Now that he's antagonized every other lawman in the state of Maine (Trespasser, 2011, etc.), game warden Mike Bowditch gets exiled to Washington County, the Down East territory where nothing ever happens. Things happen. A snowy dinner with Doc Larrabee, the elderly veterinarian who's one of the few people on speaking terms with Mike, and Doc's friend, survivalist/professor Kevin Kendrick, ends when Doc, somewhat the worse for liquor, asks Mike to respond with him to his neighbor Ben Sprague's call for help. Seems that someone has staggered out of the blizzard into the Spragues' home and told Ben and his wife, Doris, a wild story about a friend he left wandering out in the snow. The someone, Mike realizes on their arrival, is Prester Sewall, brother of local beauty Jamie Sewall, who's constitutionally drawn to all the wrong men, from her bullying little ex Mitch Munro, father of her son Lucas, to Randall Cates, the drug dealer she's been seeing most recently. The friend, Mike soon discovers when he and Kevin go looking for him, is Randall Cates. His death, which seems at first like a happy ending for Jamie, looks both backward to the overdose last year of college student Trinity Raye and forward to the consequences of Mike's fatal attraction to Jamie. The story's ultimate import becomes clear only after more bad weather, some truly ugly surprises and the obligatory standoffs between Mike and everyone capable of fighting with him. A high-stakes, high-tension yarn in which you keep wishing everything would turn out fine for the deeply flawed, deeply sympathetic hero even though you know it won't.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
