The Bone Orchard

Starred review from May 19, 2014
Having quit the Maine Warden Service for various personal reasons, Mike Bowditch barely ekes out a living as a fishing guide, showing off Maine’s North Woods to tourists, in Edgar finalist Doiron’s excellent fifth series installment (after 2013’s Massacre Pond). Though he still spends most of his time outdoors, Mike is acutely aware that he no longer has the authority to arrest lawbreakers, nor does he have the respect of his former colleagues. Mike realizes just how much of an outsider he is when his mentor and former boss, Sgt. Kathy Frost, kills Jimmy Gammon, a distraught Afghan war veteran and former military policeman, in self-defense. Later, a gunman seriously wounds Kathy outside her farmhouse. Despite his lack of authority, Mike joins the investigation into Kathy’s shooting, sorting through the list of suspects, who include members of Gammon’s politically connected family, his former platoon mates, and Kathy’s vengeful neighbor. Or was Kathy’s alcoholic brother with a gambling problem the real target? Thoughtful plotting and strong characters raise this above the crime novel pack. Agent: Ann Rittenberg, Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency.

July 1, 2014
Just because you're done with the past doesn't mean the past is done with you, as former Maine game warden Mike Bowditch discovers when his field training officer is shot virtually before his eyes.Since parting company with the Warden Service two months ago, Mike's been making ends meet by working as a fishing guide and acting as an informal live-in watchdog for Elizabeth Morse's spread. All that changes when Sgt. Kathy Frost, his old mentor, and rookie warden Danielle Tate respond to Lyla Gammon's frantic 911 call to find Lyla's son Jimmy, a troubled Afghan war veteran, barricaded in the family barn with the horses and a gun. After Kathy acknowledges that she shot Jimmy dead when he drew on her, she herself is ambushed in her home, along with her beloved dog, Pluto. Mike, arriving on the scene just in time to get his windshield shot out and scare off the shooter, resolves to bring in the perp. As Kathy hovers in a coma between life and death, Mike gets down to business by doing what he does best: going head to head with everyone in sight, from his hopeless love, Stacey Stevens, to Kathy's brother, Kurt Eklund, an alcoholic carpenter he finds passed out in her bed. And of course Mike always has time to antagonize his old nemesis Col. Duane Harkavy, the chief commanding officer of the Warden Service.The question of who shot Kathy Frost is less urgent than the question of how many more enemies Mike (Bad Little Falls, 2012, etc.) can make in the state of Maine before he burns a hole in the map and drops headlong through it.

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June 1, 2014

Following a personal loss and an unsatisfying reassignment, Mike Bowditch has left the Maine Warden Service. He's making a living as a fishing guide when he hears that his mentor, Sgt. Kathy Frost, was involved in the apparent "suicide-by-cop" death of an Afghanistan War veteran. In the furor that follows--including an official inquest and the outrage of the vet's army buddies and his well-connected father--Mike reaches out to Kathy and is soon caught in the crosshairs of the sniper who has shot her. As Kathy clings to life, Bowditch joins the hunt for the culprit. VERDICT Doiron's fifth Mike Bowditch novel (after Massacre Pond) holds few surprises in the character development of his lead protagonist but continues to deliver vivid local characters and wild Maine landscapes, as well as a satisfying mystery to solve. Recommended for readers who appreciate maverick backwoods investigators like Steve Hamilton's Alex McKnight. [Library marketing.]--Nancy H. Fontaine, Norwich P.L., VT

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2014
Rule-breaker Mike Bowditch (Massacre Pond, 2013) has left the Maine Warden Service to become an independent fishing guide. But when his mentor, Sergeant Kathy Frost, is shot by a sniper, Bowditch is drawn back into investigating like a moth to the flame. The easy answer is that Kathy was shot by someone outraged over her own recent shooting of an Afghanistan war veteran during a domestic call. But when Bowditch searches Kathy's house, he finds evidence that Kathy was looking into another local death, and he knows he's onto something when Kathy's ever-inebriated brother swipes the only clue and disappears. Taking advantage of his freedom from regulatory restraints, Bowditch is determined to sort out the connection to Kathy's shooting and find her brother before he gets himself killed. Massacre Pond is a tough act to follow, but Doiron avoids series stagnancy by placing Bowditch outside of the law-enforcement circle he once loved and treating readers to another round of top-notch outdoors-Maine description. Highly recommended for fans of C. J. Box and Craig Johnson.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)