Review of The Poacher's Son

The Poacher's Son
Paul Doiron
St. Martin's Minotaur
336 pages



Be prepared to by awed, awed by Paul Doiron’s imaginative, realistic and hard lined look at Maine’s vast wilderness and his sometimes all too human inhabitants in his debut novel The Poacher’s Son.
In this unforgettable novel Paul gives us a very human hero, a man at the cusp of maturity, trying to escape from his past while running toward his future. This man is Mike Bowditch, a Maine game warden and as the author explains is a cop who’s beat is the forest.
Paul takes us on a wild ride of an adventure where there’s been a double homicide and Mike’s dad Jack Bowditch, poacher and all around tough wilderness man is the main suspect. He takes us through the Maine wilderness with such vivid descriptive dialogue that the scenes pop in your mind’s eye like you’re part of the background. He introduces us to his many co-starring characters with their varying degree of effect and their obvious importance to the story. His star character/hero Mike is a multidimensional, complex and complicated character and as we watch him grow up in front of our eyes it becomes crystal clear how much the author likes and respects him and by the end of the novel we readers will feel the same way. But make no mistake this is not for the feint of heart, it’s a gritty, edgy and realistic mystery with no sugar coating, a wilderness adventure that takes us to places as untraveled and wild as you’ll ever find in our own country and the sometimes untamed people who populate it.
If you love a great mystery, this is for you. If you love a wilderness adventure, this is for you. If you love great storytelling, this is for you. And when it’s over, don’t despair because Paul will be working on Mike’s next adventure in this series.

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