Paul Doiron

1st in a series about a Maine game warden. Looks promising.Goodreads: Game warden Mike Bowditch returns home one evening to find a cryptic message on his answering machine from his father, Jack, who he hasn't heard from in two years. The next morning Mike gets a call from the police: a beloved local cop has been killed and his father is their prime suspect.Coming to terms with his haunted past and desperate for answers, Mike and a retired warden pilot journey deep into the Maine wilderness to clear his father's name and find out why Jack is on the run. But the only way for Mike to save his father is to find the real killer before the killer finds him.… (altro)

(2013)I had to skip to #4 in series because library did not have the next in line. Don't think I missed too much. Game warden Mike Bowditch is reluctantly drawn into an investigation of the murder of several moose on the property of a rich woman who wants to create a National Park in part of Maine where such an action is highly unpopular with the locals. The warden unit is put into action investigating the crime(s). Along the way further damage to property and the harassment of the family ensues. The daughter of the woman is chased by an unknown truck thru the wilderness once with no effect and then again which results in her death. Mike finally susses out the perpertrator as being the son of the owner of a large lumber operation in the county. All of the offenses are to try to stop the Park plans which would devastate the local economy and the business of the sawmill. The owner's son hired two local thugs to kill the moose and harass the daughter to her death. Mysterious Review:After Maine game warden Mike Bowditch finds several shot moose on the gated estate of Elizabeth Morse, he's essentially reassigned off the case by his superior, Lt. Marc Rivard, who realizes this is a career-making crime involving a controversial resident of the state. But Bowditch's instincts tell him Rivard is looking in all the wrong places, and pursues a parallel line of investigation, in Massacre Pond, the fourth mystery in this series by Paul Doiron.Elizabeth Morse � "Queen Elizabeth" to her detractors, of which there are many Â¥ had her start making herbal remedies as a hippie of the 1960s and made a fortune from them when her company was purchased for nearly $500 million decades later. Snapping up 100,000 acres of forest land with the profits, she has banned all logging operations as well as hunting and fishing and any other recreational activity on the property, and intends to will the estate to the Federal government upon her death to create a national park. In a region that depends on the land for its economy, this decision comes down hard on many residents of the region, especially those that lost their jobs as a result. She thinks the dead moose are a warning; Bowditch isn't so sure. And as unsure as he is about the case, he's really puzzled by the sudden change in his good friend Billy Cronk, Morse's driver, handyman, forester, and personal bodyguard.Massacre Pond is a superior mystery, from its riveting and rapidly moving storyline to its nearly nonstop action, which takes place over just a couple of days. The suspects are many and diverse Â¥ maybe just a few too many and maybe just a couple too obvious in a red herring sort of way Â¥ and are all given credible reasons for threatening, and carrying through on their threats to, Elizabeth Morse. The Maine environs are inviting and realistically depicted, and Mike Bowditch is a terrific series lead, conflicted (as many are) but not debilitated by it, dealing with his issues in a positive, pro-active manner. Two relatively minor quibbles when all is said and done: the body count seems unnecessarily excessive and a number of key plot points are left unresolved at the end. This is an exceptionally well executed series to date, and Massacre Pond a fine entry in it.Acknowledgment: Minotaur Books provided a copy of Massacre Pond for this review.Review Copyright ? 2013 Â¥ Hidden Staircase Mystery Books Â¥ All Rights ReservedShare1Selected reviews of other mysteries by this author … (altro)