Widowmaker

Widowmaker is up close and personal even more so than usual. Mike Bowditch’s struggles and flaws are always front and center, out in the open, fodder for gossip and interfering with his desire to just get his job done. But in Widowmaker it’s even worse: he’s hit in the head with something he never even imagined – that his father had another son with a woman not Mike’s mother. Amber Langstrom shows up on Mike’s doorstep, asking for his help to find who she claims is his half-brother. A man who is also a convicted sexual predator, recently released from prison and living at a work camp in the woods. Well, living there until he disappeared. Amber fears for his life. Mike doesn’t know whether to believe her or not. She show more doesn’t seem very reliable but anything was possible with his father. Mike has just barely managed to put some of the past troubles and heartache with his father behind him, has been trying to do his job and stay out of trouble, trying to inch his relationship with Stacey further along. But he never gets a break, does he?

He's not sure if he even likes the idea of having a half-brother, but it’s a tantalizing idea that has worked its way into his brain, and as always curiosity gets the better of him. He needs to find the answer to just one more question, to see justice done and of course save anyone and everyone in need.

Widowmaker is another stellar addition to the Mike Bowditch Maine game warden series. Full of excitement as we go with Mike on his hunt for answers, danger as he gets himself on the wrong side of a vigilante group, and drama as he tries to shelter Stacey and isn’t as open with her as he should be. As always, the Maine woods are a main character in the story, vivid descriptions that drop you right in the middle of the action, and the story is full of perfectly written sentences like, “Someone had once painted its cedar shingles bright blue, but the color had faded and had now turned a color I associated with the lips of people who’d frozen to death,” that just make you want to read them again to savor them. Every story is a great standalone but get the maximum pleasure and read this excellent series from the start. show less

This is the first book that I read in this series, and I immediately put the rest of the author's book on my TBR list. He met my criteria for mystery writers of having a predictable worldview, and being charming enough that I felt like reading the next book in the series was like picking up a conversation with an old friend.

Paul Doiron is one of my very favorite mystery writers, and his latest Mike Bowditch tale is a stellar seventh addition to a great series. (I'm glad to report that Mike—though he's supposedly growing and maturing as time passes—retains enough of his natural irascibility to keep things interesting). Widowmaker kicks off with a strange woman barging into Mike's life to tell him he has a half-brother he didn't know about; a half-brother who's missing and possibly in big trouble. From there we're off to the races, and as always the action is well done and the story told with great authority. There are quirky citizens and worthy villains and Doiron renders the Maine landscape and people unerringly…something that's a big part of my show more enjoyment of the series. (And not just people; his portrait of a mysterious wolf-dog hybrid is superb, and I want to plead right here that he comes back in a subsequent book). Anyway, if you're already a fan, you'll be happy to have this new chapter in your hands. And if you're not, what are you waiting for? show less

This is the seventh book in Doiron’s crime series featuring Maine game warden Mike Bowditch. (In Maine, game wardens are full law-enforcement officers, with all the powers of state troopers: “They are the ‘off-road police.’”)

Mike, 28, has been a game warden for five years, and has been dating Stacy Stevens. Stacy is a wildlife biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Currently she is up north in Ashland, Maine, studying a dying-off of moose in the state, so Mike is on his own.

A beautiful but crass and manipulative woman, Amber Langstrom, shows up at Mike’s door, asking for his help in finding her son Adam. She claims Adam is the illegitimate son of Mike’s father, and therefore Mike’s show more half-brother. Mike’s father is dead, but when he was alive, he had been “the most notorious criminal in Maine: a legendary poacher turned cop killer and fugitive.” Mike has been struggling to get out from under the shadow of his dad’s reputation, but can’t resist finding out more about this missing 21-year-old who might in fact be related to him; in addition to everything else, his father was known as a “ladies’ man.”

Mike explains letting himself being talked into looking for Adam by admitting: ‘I have always had a foolhardy streak,” and allowing that he has “a chronic addiction to adrenaline.” But then there is also: just being stupid.

Without any proof from Amber except a photo in which Adam displays eyes remarkably like Mike’s dad’s (but also remarkably like Amber’s), Mike heads up to the area near the [fictional] Widowmaker Ski Resort, where Amber works. Adam has been living nearby there in a halfway house for convicted sex offenders released from jail. Adam served two years for the crime of statutory rape, which Adam’s mother insists was actually consensual sex.

Mike contacts Gary Pulsifer, the district warden for the area, for more information on the case. Mike decides that “everything [Gary] told me about Adam’s character - his cockiness, his fighting temper, his marksmanship with a deer rifle - made me think the missing man really might be my father’s second son.” [Because those characteristics are hereditary? And uniquely so? Really? The author is a really smart guy, and has consistently painted Mike as one too. It seems he wanted to give Mike an “excuse” to think this guy really was his brother, but this stretches credulity….]

In any event, there is much obfuscating by local residents who hate sex offenders; a variety of murders; and Mike’s own life is endangered.

There is also a side plot about a wolf dog that doesn’t have much to do with the rest of it, but actually was more interesting to me than the main plot, and much less irritating for a number of reasons.

Evaluation: This is probably my least favorite of all the Mike Bowditch books, but I like the series, and I love the focus on a Maine game warden that enables readers to learn a great deal of background about Maine wildlife. I’ll be hoping for better things with the next book! show less

It’s been a while since I read one of Paul Doiron’s novels about Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch. It only took a couple of pages to be transformed back into the beautiful wintry landscape of Maine. Mike has a steady girl friend now who shares his passion for nature. Stacey is in a remote area of northern Maine helping take a survey of the moose population that has been plagued by vicious ticks. These blood suckers are causing a drastic decline in the numbers of moose. Mike, just starting to feel comfortable with his relationship with Stacey, has an unexpected visitor. Amber, a strange yet beautiful woman, says she knew Mike’s dead father very well. According to her, Mike has a half-brother, her son, Adam. Adam was recently paroled show more from prison after serving time for a sex offender conviction. This previously unknown brother is apparently missing. Amber thinks something bad has happened to him. She wants Mike to find him. Mike has trouble getting his head around the idea that he has a grown half-brother he never knew about. Although, when Mike thinks of the crap his father pulled when Mike was growing up, he can’t deny the possibility of his father having fathered a child by another woman. Mike’s father’s bad karma just seems to keep on giving. His father was a well known and not well liked poacher in this part of Maine. He had few friends and many enemies. His bad ways lead to a showdown with the police that resulted in his father killing an officer of the law. Ever since his Dad’s death, Mike has been trying to live down his bad reputation. Mike’s job as a game warden has given him many opportunities to right some wrongs. Now this bombshell about a possible ex-con half-brother is dropped on him by a perfect stranger. What more could happen in the middle of a Maine winter? Plenty. Book provided for review by Amazon Vine. show less

Bowditch still wrestles with the demons of his past, so when a woman shows up at his door to say he has a half-brother who needs to be rescued, he can't resist trying to help. Meanwhile, he has rescued a wolf from some druggies and is compelled to find a home for it. Traveling from Sebago to Rangeley in the winter, Mike finds himself in the middle of a community's antipathy toward convicted sex abusers who have been farmed out to work at a logging camp, where his alleged brother was last seen. The frigid temperatures permeate the setting and the community attitudes of this particular rural Maine. The ending does not provide an altogether satisfactory resolution.

Afraid the I just don't like (or care about) Mike Bowditch. For a few novels, he was impossible, but tolerable hoping that he would mature and act reasonably/responsibly. However, he has not. Biggest pain in the ass I could imagine. I see no hint of the positive value that seems to keep him employed by the Warden's Service.
Love the concept and the locale, but am finished with the character.