The Poacher's Son

January 11, 2010
Down East
editor-in-chief Doiron takes a provocative look at the ties between fathers and sons, unconditional love, and Maine’s changing landscape in his outstanding debut. Game warden Mike Bowditch, who hasn’t heard from his dad, Jack Bowditch, in two years, wonders what the man wants from him after he comes home late one night and finds Jack has left a cryptic message on his answering machine. Mike later learns Jack is the prime suspect in the shooting murders of a cop and a timber company executive. Jack, a brutal alcoholic, makes his living poaching game, but Mike can’t believe Jack is a cold-blooded killer. Mike’s belief in his father puts his job at risk, alienates him from the police, and drives him further away from the woman he loves. Fans of C.J. Box and Nevada Barr will appreciate the vivid wilderness scenes. Equally a story of relationships and an outdoor adventure, this evocative thriller is sure to put Doiron on several 2010 must-read lists. 100,000 first printing; author tour.

May 31, 2010
Doiron's strong debut features Mike Bowditch, a newbie game warden, who hears that his estranged father, a hard-living poacher, has been accused of murdering two men and has escaped into a wilderness area. Ignoring the orders of both his superior and the police, Bowditch sets out to find his father and prove his innocence. The author makes the warden's journey so rich in boyhood memories, vivid characters, striking scenic wonders that it's a pity John Bedford Lloyd delivers such a staid performance. Stiff and straightforward, he only seems to catch the mood when giving voice to the man on the run, gruff Jack Bowditch, and other growling denizens of the Maine woods. A Minotaur hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 11).

Starred review from January 1, 2010
A Maine Game Warden fights to clear his no-account father of murder charges in this deeply felt actioner.

Even before his parents divorced, Mike Bowditch wasn't close to his father, and after the breakup, when Jack Bowditch descended into a swamp of womanizing and drinking, Mike had less and less to do with him. Since the last time he saw his father two years ago, he's become a Game Warden—a slap in the face to both his poacher father and his girlfriend, Sarah Harris, who left Mike when she realized he was never going to go to law school. Now Jack's back in Mike's life with a vengeance. Someone has shot Jonathan Shipman, the spokesman for the deeply unpopular corporate purchaser of a 100-year-old campground that's obviously planning to shove the current residents aside in the name of development, and Bill Brodeur, the deputy who was guarding him. Det. Wayne Soctomah is convinced that Jack was the shooter. So is almost everyone else in Somerset County except for Mike and his mother, Marie Turner. Scorning Marie and her second husband, attorney Neil Turner, who go into hiding to avoid Jack, Mike vows to do whatever he can to vindicate the father who's been phoning him for help. His decision leads to a series of disastrously self-destructive actions that Doiron makes perfectly credible, all interspersed with a series of flashbacks to Mike's childhood that are both tender and chilling.

C.J. Box goes East. Like Box, Doiron will have his hands full trying to top his accomplished debut.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from February 15, 2010
Doirons debut crime novel is set on the coast and in the North Woods of Maine, the home of rookie game warden Mike Bowditch. As tensions rise across the state with the impending sale of huge tracts of paper-company forest land to an out-of-state developer, Mike receives a strange message from his father, left on the same night the paper company rep and a state trooper are shot and killed after a heated town meeting. Doirin, editor-in-chief of Down State magazine, is well acquainted with the current political and cultural tensions that crisscross Maine, and his local knowledge drives this fast-paced and twisty narrative. With realistically flawed characters and a strong sense of placeboth on the coast and in the woodsthe novel avoids tourist stereotyping, of Maine itself and its citizens. As a game warden, Mike is devoted to upholding the law, and as a conflict appears to develop between that responsibility and his love for his estranged father, he finds himself with both his job and life on the line. One hopes this fine novel is the first in a series starring Warden Bowditch, who could quickly become the East Coast version of C. J. Boxs game-warden hero Joe Pickett, who patrols the range in Wyoming.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

Starred review from December 15, 2009
Mike Bowditch, 24, is a rookie game warden for the state of Maine. He's also the son of Jack Bowditch, legendary woodsman, brawler, womanizer, and poacher whom Mike has not seen in over two years. One hot summer night while Mike is out answering a call about a bear stealing a pig, Jack leaves Mike a cryptic message on his answering machine. The next morning, Mike learns that his father is wanted in the murders of a paper company representative and a sheriff's deputy. Through a long few days, Mike jeopardizes his dream job to help the father whose attention he could never get. VERDICT A richly imagined portrait of the vanishing wilderness in New England's farthest reaches, Doiron's (editor in chief, "Down East: The Magazine of Maine") well-written debut is also a taut thriller and a thoughtful examination of the complicated relationship between father and son. Of a piece with Castle Freeman Jr.'s "All That I Have" about a Vermont sheriff, this will also appeal to fans of C.J. Box's Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett. [A Minotaur First Edition Selection; 100,000-copy first printing; library marketing.]Nancy Fontaine, Dartmouth Coll., Hanover, NH

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