‘Trespasser’ by Paul Doiron

Published by Constable Crime,
23 May 2013.
ISBN: 978-1-78033-817-0

I read Doiron's first book, The Poacher's Son earlier this year with huge pleasure and eagerly waited for the next Mike Bowditch adventure.  Trespasser is equally good.  Mike Bowditch, a young Game Warden in rural Maine, learns that has been an accident on a lonely road at night.  A deer has been hit, a girl is missing.  He is ordered off the scene by a senior police officer and returns to his home (and somewhat hostile live-in girlfriend) though he is deeply worried about the girl's whereabouts and safety.  He is on the spot when her body is eventually found, as is yet another body, a little later.  

The girl's murder is identical to one which took place seven years earlier, for which a local lobsterman was jailed, despite his fervent denials of involvement, which are backed up a vocal team of sympathisers.  As the investigation continues, it seems increasingly likely that they are right, and he is an innocent victim. And how is the local problem family mixed up in it all, or the bad-boy father-and-son couple with their vicious brute of a pit-bull terrier?

Doiron writes a dense and skilfully-plotted story.  And again, his setting, the deep Maine woods and rocky coastlines, are beautifully realised. So are the well-depicted characters.  To give away more of the plot would spoil this book for the reader, and as before, the final twists are brilliant. Go for it!     

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Reviewer: Susan Moody

Paul Doiron is a native of Maine, he attended Yale University, where he graduated with a degree in English, and he holds an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College. He is the author of the Mike Bowditch series of crime novels, including The Poacher's Son, which won the Barry Award and the Strand Critics Award for Best First Novel and Thriller Award for Best First Novel, and the Maine Literary Award for "Best Fiction of 2010. His second book in the Mike Bowditch series, Trespasser, won the Maine Literary Award for crime fiction, was an American Booksellers Association Indie Bestseller and has been called a "masterpiece of high-octane narrative" by Booklist. His third novel in the series, Bad Little Falls, will be published on August 7.  He is the editor in chief of Down East: The Magazine of Maine, Down East Books, and DownEast.com. He is a former member of the Maine Arts Commission and a current member of the Maine Humanities Council. Paul is a Registered Maine Guide specializing in fly fishing and outdoor recreation and lives on a trout stream in coastal Maine.

Susan Moody was born in Oxford is the principal nom de plume  of Susan Elizabeth Donaldson, née Horwood, a British novelist best known for her suspense novels. She is a former Chairman of the Crime Writer's Association, served as World President of the International Association of Crime Writers, and was elected to the prestigious Detection Club. Susan Moody has given numerous courses on writing crime fiction and continues to teach creative writing in England, France, Australia, the USA and Denmark.  In addition to her many stand alone books, Susan has written two series, on featuring PI Penny Wanawake (seven books) and a series of six books featuring bridge player Cassie Swan.