Mike Bowditch Mysteries
12 primary works • 16 total works
Book 1
Book 2
While on patrol on foggy March evening, Mike Bowditch receives a call for help. A woman has reportedly struck a deer on a lonely coast road. When the game warden arrives on the scene, he finds blood in the road - but both the driver and deer have vanished. The details of the disappearance seem eerily familiar. Seven years earlier, a jury convicted Erland Jefferts of the rape and murder of a college student and sentenced him to a life in prison. But when the missing woman is found brutalized in a manner that suggests Jefferts may have been framed, Bowditch receives a warning from state prosecutors to stop asking questions.
For Bowditch, doing nothing is not an option. And as he closes in on his quarry, he suddenly discovers how dangerous his opponents are, and how far they will go to prevent him from bringing a killer to justice.
Praise for The Poacher's Son:
An excellent debut - filled with murder, betrayal and a terrific sense of place. C.J. Box.
A stunning debut...At its heart this is a tale of bitter betrayal, lost hopes and broken dreams. The book has a tautness that is impossible to forget and which left me close to tears. It is also the first in a series. Its successor, Trespasser, also featuring Bowditch, is on the way. Grab him now. Daily Mail.
Stunning vistas...eye popping scenes - The New York Times Book Review.
This is a compelling, moving and utterly impressive debut - Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog.
The Poacher's Son is one of the best written debut novels I have read in years. This novel has it all - a great plot, a wonderful Maine woods setting and a truly remarkable and believable cast of characters. - Nelson de Mille.
Book 3
Game warden Mike Bowditch has been sent into exile, transferred by his superiors to a remote outpost on the Canadian border. When a blizzard descends on the coast, Bowditch is called to the remote cabin of a terrified couple. A raving and half-frozen man has appeared at their door, claiming his friend is lost in the storm. But what starts as a rescue mission soon becomes a baffling murder investigation.
The dead man is an infamous drug dealer and state police suspect it was his own friend who killed him. Bowditch isn't so sure - but his vow not to interfere in the case is tested when he finds himself powerfully attracted to a beautiful woman with a dark past and a troubled young son who harbours secrets of his own...
Praise for The Poacher's Son:
An excellent debut - filled with murder, betrayal and a terrific sense of place. C.J. Box.
A stunning debut...At its heart this is a tale of bitter betrayal, lost hopes and broken dreams. The book has a tautness that is impossible to forget and which left me close to tears. It is also the first in a series. Its successor, Trespasser, also featuring Bowditch, is on the way. Grab him now. Daily Mail.
Stunning vistas...eye popping scenes - The New York Times Book Review.
This is a compelling, moving and utterly impressive debut - Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog.
The Poacher's Son is one of the best written debut novels I have read in years. This novel has it all - a great plot, a wonderful Maine woods setting and a truly remarkable and believable cast of characters. - Nelson de Mille.
Book 4
On an unseasonably hot October morning, Mike Bowditch is called to the scene of a bizarre crime: the corpses of seven moose have been found butchered on the estate of Elizabeth Moore, a wealthy animal rights activist who is buying up huge parcels of forest to create a new national park.
What at first seems like mindless slaughter becomes far more sinister when a shocking murder is discovered and Mike's investigation becomes a hunt to find an elusive killer. In order to solve the controversial case he risks losing everything he holds dear: his best friend, his career - and the love of his life.
Praise for The Poacher's Son:
'An excellent debut - filled with murder, betrayal and a terrific sense of place.' C.J. Box
'A stunning debut...At its heart this is a tale of bitter betrayal, lost hopes and broken dreams. The book has a tautness that is impossible to forget and which left me close to tears. It is also the first in a series. Its successor, Trespasser, also featuring Bowditch, is on the way. Grab him now.' Daily Mail
'Stunning vistas... eye popping scenes.' The New York Times Book Review
'This is a compelling, moving and utterly impressive debut.' Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog
'The Poacher's Son is one of the best written debut novels I have read in years. This novel has it all - a great plot, a wonderful Maine woods setting and a truly remarkable and believable cast of characters' Nelson de Mille
Book 5
Book 6
In this riveting new novel from Edgar finalist Paul Doiron, Bowditch joins a desperate search for two missing hikers as Maine wildlife officials deal with a frightening rash of coyote attacks.
When two female hikers disappear in the Hundred Mile Wilderness-the most remote stretch along the entire Appalachian Trail-Maine game warden Mike Bowditch joins the desperate search to find them.
Hope turns to despair after two unidentified corpses are discovered-their bones picked clean by coyotes. Do the bodies belong to the missing hikers? And were they killed by the increasingly aggressive wild dogs?
Soon, all of Maine is gripped with the fear of killer coyotes. But Bowditch has his doubts. His new girlfriend, wildlife biologist Stacey Stevens, insists the scavengers are being wrongly blamed. She believes a murderer may be hiding in the offbeat community of hikers, hippies, and woodsmen at the edge of the Hundred Mile Wilderness. When Stacey herself disappears along the Appalachian Trail, the hunt for answers becomes personal.
Can Mike Bowditch find the woman he loves before the most dangerous animal in the North Woods strikes again?
Book 7
"After a mysterious woman gives Mike Bowditch disturbing news, the game warden goes looking for a family secret in a Maine ski town and discovers a vigilante who seems to be targeting sex offenders"--
Book 8
Book 9
When a woman is shot to death by a deer hunter on an island off the coast of Maine, the case seems open and shut to newly promoted Warden Investigator Mike Bowditch. But as soon as he arrives on remote Maquoit Island, the hunter claims he didn't fire the fatal shot-- and the ballistic evidence proves he's telling the truth. Who killed Ariel Evans, an author writing a book about the island's notorious hermit? The next day the dead woman herself steps off the weekly ferry, determined to solve her own murder. -- adapted from jacket
Book 10
Then Mike receives a second call for help, this time from a distant mountain valley where Shadow, a wolf-hybrid he once cared for, has been found shot by an arrow and clinging to life. He searches for the identity of the bowman, but his investigation is blocked at every turn by the increasingly hostile community. And when Billy's wife and children are threatened, Mike finds himself tested like never before. How can he possibly keep the family safe when he has enemies of his own on his trail?
Torn between loyalties, Mike Bowditch must respond in the only way he knows how: by bending every law and breaking every rule to keep his loved ones safe and the true predators at bay.
Book 11
Forced to question his faith in the man he sees as a father, Mike must reopen a cold case that powerful people - one of whom may be a killer - will do anything to keep closed.
Book 12
Hours earlier, Mike was called to investigate the suspicious drowning of a wealthy professor. Despite the death being ruled an accident, his elegant, eccentric daughter-in-law insists the man was murdered. She suspects his companion that day, a reclusive survivalist and conspiracy theorist who accompanied the professor on his fateful duck-hunting trip-but what exactly was the nature of their relationship? And was her own sharp-tongued daughter, who inherited the dead man's fortune, as close to her grandfather as she claims? The accusations lead Mike to a sinister local family who claim to have information on the crime. But when his Jeep flies into the river and unknown armed assailants on snowmobiles chase him through the wilderness, the investigation turns into a fight for survival.
As Mike faces a nightlong battle to stay alive, he must dissect the hours leading up to the ambush and solve two riddles: which one of these people desperately want him dead, and what has he done to incur their wrath?
Book 15
For Maine game warden investigator Mike Bowditch, the intensity of Redmond's secretiveness is troubling - especially in light of suspicious criminal activity being reported around the area. When he asks Josie to fly him to the pond, he soon comes to regret his naivete. Hours after they arrive, Bowditch awakens from drugged unconsciousness to find Josie dead and Redmond and his daughter Cady on the run, making a mad dash to Canada.
For Mike Bowditch, there is no choice but to set off through the impenetrable forest, alone and unarmed in pursuit of the mysterious fugitive. As he navigates a windblown landscape choked with deadfalls and blocked by swollen streams, he marvels at Redmond's bushcraft. The man possesses skills surpassing his own, and Bowditch can't tell if he is the cat or the mouse in this dangerous game.
As they converge on the Canadian border, Bowditch pieces together the details of Redmond's past and is shaken by a thought: his enemy is prepared to kill his own child rather than have her taken from him. Can Mike Bowditch stop the desperate man in time to rescue Cady, or will he be forced to watch another innocent soul die?
Camped on an islet for the night, Mike and Stacey waken to the sound of a gunshot. When they return to the refuge at dawn, their darkest fears are confirmed: two of the three researchers have been brutally murdered and the third has disappeared, along with the island skiff. Mike's quest to find the missing man leads to a nearby island owned by a world-renowned photographer and his equally brilliant wife. The inhabitants of this private kingdom quickly close ranks, and Mike increasingly comes to believe that someone in the village knows more about the killings than they dare admit.
With no one to trust and miles from shore, Mike Bowditch must stop a ruthless murderer determined to make sure a terrifying secret never sees the light of day.
Meanwhile, the hunt is on for the mysterious boater. Suspects abound on the lake, nicknamed 'Golden Pond', and every discovery leads to a new mystery. Alone among his fellow officers, Mike begins to sense the involvement of a trained professional, smarter and more dangerous than any enemy he has faced. As Mike and Stacey get closer to identifying the killer, their own lives are suddenly put on the line, leading to a confrontation designed to silence them forever.