First Line: The last time I saw Lucas Sewall, he left a school notebook under the passenger seat of my truck.
Just because Maine game warden Mike Bowditch has been sent into exile in a remote area at the Canadian border doesn't mean his life has gotten quiet and uncomplicated. When a blizzard roars in, he's sent to a cabin where a frightened couple has given shelter to a raving and half-frozen man who claims his friend is still out there, lost in the storm.
What starts out as a search and rescue mission turns into a murder investigation, for the friend lost in the storm turns out to be a known drug dealer, and the half-frozen man becomes their prime suspect. Mike isn't so sure but decides to stay out of it. His vow to not get involved is sorely tested when he becomes strongly attracted to the half-frozen man's sister and her strange young son. The boy seems to know something about what happened out in the blizzard, but he's not saying anything, choosing instead to keep all his thoughts locked up in a notebook filled with drawings and ciphers.
Alone in an area filled with people distrustful of game wardens, Mike is going to have to rely on his own wits-- not only to find a killer but to survive.
~
I like Paul Doiron's Mike Bowditch mysteries because I love stories about sparsely inhabited areas and because I get to watch an impulsive, heart-on-his-sleeve, young man solve mysteries and grow up along the way. He is very...very... slowly learning that he doesn't know better than everyone else, and it's an attitude that needs to change before it kills him.
Bad Little Falls, like the other books in the series, gives readers an excellent feel for the wilds of Maine and the independent-minded, insular people who live there. As Doiron states at the end of the book, "No law enforcement organization in Maine has suffered more deaths in the line of duty than the Warden Service." That statement alone gives readers a better perspective on what Doiron's main character has to face.
Reading about an impulsive, know-it-all, looking-for-love, young man could wear a person out, so it's good that the cast also contains folks like veteran bush pilot Charley Stevens, "gimlet-eyed lesbian" county sheriff Roberta Rhine, and Lucas, the strange little boy who fills his notebooks with all the words he will not say and all the thoughts he refuses to share. In many ways, Lucas is my favorite character in Bad Little Falls. He can provide a little light humor when he ponders the subject of "Abnormal [Abominable] Snowmen," and he can also give you the shivers or even break your heart.
Populated with interesting characters, this solid mystery has plenty of misdirection to keep you guessing. It also provides a harrowing portrait of an area in this country that most of us know very little about. I enjoy gaining knowledge with my fiction. That's why I'll keep coming back to Mike Bowditch deep in the Maine woods.
Bad Little Falls by Paul Doiron
ISBN: 9780312558482
Minotaur Books © 2012
Hardcover, 320 pages
Law Enforcement/Police Procedural, #3 Mike Bowditch mystery
Rating: B+
Source: Purchased from Book Outlet.
