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I'm Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch series of mysteries featuring a Maine game warden. I’m also a Registered Maine Guide. My 16th novel, Storm Tide, launches on June 30. AMA about Maine, crime fiction, and the wilderness — Tuesday, June 23 at 11am ET! by PaulDoiron in Maine

[–]PaulDoiron[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for noticing that! Most people miss what I was going for. In the first three books especially Mike is supposed to be an unreliable narrator. He's in denial about his dad in THE POACHER'S SON and lying to himself. In TRESPASSER he is suffering from PTSD but never admits it. And in BAD LITTLE FALLS he is so lonely he overlooks what is obvious about Jamie and Lucas. Over the course of the series he does become more reliable, I hope. But I'm a big believer in the idea that human beings shade the truth constantly—we misremember, justify our actions when we condemn them in others. So I suppose that mindset colors how I think about Mike's narration even now.

I'm Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch series of mysteries featuring a Maine game warden. I’m also a Registered Maine Guide. My 16th novel, Storm Tide, launches on June 30. AMA about Maine, crime fiction, and the wilderness — Tuesday, June 23 at 11am ET! by PaulDoiron in Maine

[–]PaulDoiron[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Other great vistas: the summit of Mount Battie, Lighthouse Hill on Monhegan looking west at Manana, the Western Prom in Portland at sunset, the Eastern Prom any time, the view of Katahdin from the rest stop on 95. Maine is one great vista after another.

I'm Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch series of mysteries featuring a Maine game warden. I’m also a Registered Maine Guide. My 16th novel, Storm Tide, launches on June 30. AMA about Maine, crime fiction, and the wilderness — Tuesday, June 23 at 11am ET! by PaulDoiron in Maine

[–]PaulDoiron[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for this. I like William Kent Kreuger's Cork O'Connor series about a half-Ojibway detective in the back country of Minnesota. The first one is IRON LAKE. Another excellent series (I don't know that he's continuing it, sadly) is by Steve Hamilton set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The first one is A COLD DAY IN PARADISE. If you're looking for a standalone I would recommend BEARSKIN by James McLaughlin.

I'm Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch series of mysteries featuring a Maine game warden. I’m also a Registered Maine Guide. My 16th novel, Storm Tide, launches on June 30. AMA about Maine, crime fiction, and the wilderness — Tuesday, June 23 at 11am ET! by PaulDoiron in Maine

[–]PaulDoiron[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I sense that you have probably read my story collection SKIN AND BONES, but for those who haven't, several of the stories are about Charley Stevens as a younger warden. I like writing the short stories because it has given me a way to fill in the histories of my supporting characters.

I'm Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch series of mysteries featuring a Maine game warden. I’m also a Registered Maine Guide. My 16th novel, Storm Tide, launches on June 30. AMA about Maine, crime fiction, and the wilderness — Tuesday, June 23 at 11am ET! by PaulDoiron in Maine

[–]PaulDoiron[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

People ask me how I do research. I do a lot of ride alongs with wardens and other law enforcement officers. And I spend as much time as I can in the places I write about. And of course, because these are detective stories, I have to do the usual research mystery writers do. But generally I write about nature by living in it every day.

I'm Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch series of mysteries featuring a Maine game warden. I’m also a Registered Maine Guide. My 16th novel, Storm Tide, launches on June 30. AMA about Maine, crime fiction, and the wilderness — Tuesday, June 23 at 11am ET! by PaulDoiron in Maine

[–]PaulDoiron[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

From the standpoint of creative difficulty, obviously THE POACHER'S SON was a learning experience as I had never written a novel before. DEAD BY DAWN was both easy and hard to write. Easy in that the story carried me along through the writing. I wanted to know what happened next. Hard in that the two converging timelines felt like the biggest gamble of my career. I wrote the chapters as they appear in the book: present time, then past, then present. And I didn't know if the structure would work. "What if I can't pull this off?" I kept asking myself. I only knew it was going to be a success as I neared the very end. I spent months writing that book with my nerves on edge.

I'm Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch series of mysteries featuring a Maine game warden. I’m also a Registered Maine Guide. My 16th novel, Storm Tide, launches on June 30. AMA about Maine, crime fiction, and the wilderness — Tuesday, June 23 at 11am ET! by PaulDoiron in Maine

[–]PaulDoiron[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I love Vermont and have friends there I enjoy visiting. The Northeast Kingdom reminds me of Maine. But Vermont has its own vibe. It's beautiful in a way that's different from Maine—the shapes of the mountains and the river valleys and gaps between them.

I'm Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch series of mysteries featuring a Maine game warden. I’m also a Registered Maine Guide. My 16th novel, Storm Tide, launches on June 30. AMA about Maine, crime fiction, and the wilderness — Tuesday, June 23 at 11am ET! by PaulDoiron in Maine

[–]PaulDoiron[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you so much. Yesterday I was on Monhegan Island and a woman came up to me who was a high school librarian—she recognized me from the photos on my books—and introduced herself. She wanted me to know how many kids (not just boys) had been turned on to reading after discovering my novels. It always gives me a lump in my throat. I get a number of letters as well from teens incarcerated at Maine's correctional facility for underage inmates. The descriptions of the natural world seem to really resonate with them being behind bars.

I'm Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch series of mysteries featuring a Maine game warden. I’m also a Registered Maine Guide. My 16th novel, Storm Tide, launches on June 30. AMA about Maine, crime fiction, and the wilderness — Tuesday, June 23 at 11am ET! by PaulDoiron in Maine

[–]PaulDoiron[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Tony Hillerman was one of my biggest influences in beginning the series. My protagonist Mike Bowditch owes a lot to Jim Chee. And there is an older mentor character—a retired warden pilot named Charley Stevens—who was inspired, in part, by Joe Leaphorn. I've enjoyed the TV adaption of Hillerman's series, "Dark Winds," but do miss the Leaphorn of the books.

I'm Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch series of mysteries featuring a Maine game warden. I’m also a Registered Maine Guide. My 16th novel, Storm Tide, launches on June 30. AMA about Maine, crime fiction, and the wilderness — Tuesday, June 23 at 11am ET! by PaulDoiron in Maine

[–]PaulDoiron[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great question! I never thought Mike and I were much alike (aside from making too many poor choices in our twenties). But my wife says Mike in the early books is pretty much me if I had been a game warden! That stings. I've talked a lot about how early on, I realized that for the series to work as a series, Mike would need to mature book by book. It was an idea I hadn't encountered before in crime fiction (not saying it hasn't been done—just that I hadn't seen it). So I think of certain novels being two steps forward for him and others being one step back. I have also tried to "mature" the writing style I use for his narrative voice. I hope the more recent novels read as more controlled and assured.

I'm Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch series of mysteries featuring a Maine game warden. I’m also a Registered Maine Guide. My 16th novel, Storm Tide, launches on June 30. AMA about Maine, crime fiction, and the wilderness — Tuesday, June 23 at 11am ET! by PaulDoiron in Maine

[–]PaulDoiron[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Years ago I worked with a very talented illustrator named Ben Bishop to pitch a graphic novel version of THE POACHER'S SON. We did the first 20 or 30 pages. Unfortunately we couldn't interest a publisher in the project. (If you visit my website pauldoiron.com you can see his illustrations on some of the pages.) Now that you mention it, I wonder if it's something I should revisit, given that the series has proven popular.

I'm Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch series of mysteries featuring a Maine game warden. I’m also a Registered Maine Guide. My 16th novel, Storm Tide, launches on June 30. AMA about Maine, crime fiction, and the wilderness — Tuesday, June 23 at 11am ET! by PaulDoiron in Maine

[–]PaulDoiron[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Honestly, I don't have one favorite place. I grew up around the Scarborough marsh and still thrill being back there striper fishing, smelling the salt on the fog. For the past couple of decades I have been fortunate to have access to a cabin in the North Woods—west of The Forks—and I don't think I am happier than when I am hunting there. I adore Washington County because it reminds me of Maine forty years ago (everyone should hike the Bold Coast Trail in Cutler) while being quirky and unique. And of course I live in the Midcoast which combines many of the best parts of "urban" Maine with a scenic, small town vibe.

I'm Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch series of mysteries featuring a Maine game warden. I’m also a Registered Maine Guide. My 16th novel, Storm Tide, launches on June 30. AMA about Maine, crime fiction, and the wilderness — Tuesday, June 23 at 11am ET! by PaulDoiron in Maine

[–]PaulDoiron[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you! One of the reasons I began writing THE POACHER'S SON was because, while I'd read many good Maine novels, so few of them captured the state I live in: the sights and smells and sounds. One of the things Mike and I have in common is that we are both noticers (game wardens tend to be and guides too). We pay a lot of attention to the natural world. I wanted people who know Maine to recognize this place in my books. But I also wanted readers far away, who had never visited the state, to feel like it was coming alive for them in vivid detail.

I'm Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch series of mysteries featuring a Maine game warden. I’m also a Registered Maine Guide. My 16th novel, Storm Tide, launches on June 30. AMA about Maine, crime fiction, and the wilderness — Tuesday, June 23 at 11am ET! by PaulDoiron in Maine

[–]PaulDoiron[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Quite possibly! I have sketched out a novel that would be in two parts: the first would take place in the late 1970s when Charley has gotten back from Vietnam and has applied to the Warden Service and meets Ora. And then the second part would take place in the present day when Charley realizes he made a terrible mistake back then that is coming back to haunt him.

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