News
On April 22 at 7 p.m, I'll be reading and signing books at the Porter Memorial Library in Machias, the unfairly maligned setting for Bad Little Falls (the town is a far more scenic and welcoming place than Mike Bowditch gives it credit for, which is something I plan on talking about at the event).
I might even slip in an excerpt for the forthcoming Massacre Pond if you need an added incentive for scheduling a Down East getaway.
Everyone has heard the old saying that the Eskimos, or Inuit, have umpteen different words for snow. The idea is that they live closer to their environment than we do, and thus have not lost the ability to differentiate between the multitudinous forms freezing precipitation can take. Where we see snow, the Inuit see subtleties.
This charming legend, like most charming legends, is false. In fact, that Inuit have just about as many words for snow as do English speakers; they just tend to combine their terms in certain ways to add specificity to their meteorological conditions.
As Warden Mike Bowditch notes in Bad Little Falls, a few degrees in temperature can make a huge difference in what sorts of snowflakes form:
Warmer weather means wetter snow. Wet snow is heavy; its weight shatters tree branches. It clings to power lines and brings them crashing down. On the road it turns to slush and sends tractionless cars skipping into ditches. Wet snow melts quickly in your hair and runs down the back of your neck. It follows you into your house by riding in the treads of your boots and leaves puddles to mark its passage. I know this because, like the Inuit, I live mostly outdoors in the winter.
Because of the low-pressure front pushing down from Canada, the snow that was falling outside my trailer was not wet but, in fact, very dry. The wind whipped it around like white sand in a white desert, forming metamorphic dunes and ridges that changed shape while I watched. Dry snow carries its own dangers. It clings to nothing, not even itself, and is so light it can be stirred by the faintest breeze. Weightless, it resists plowing and shoveling. It covers your tracks in the woods, making it easier for you to get lost, and because it is the harbinger of sub-zero temperatures, it makes losing your way a potentially life-threatening mistake. Dry snow can turn a black night blindingly white.
What northern New England is experiencing is very dry snow combined with high winds, which is why tonight is going to be a very white night.
I've been quiet on the blogging front because I've been working hard on my fourth Mike Bowditch novel, Massacre Pond. Now that I am nearing the end, it feels like I am rising from the depths after having been submerged a long time. I describe the unreality of this experience at Maine Crime Writers today.
In other news, Edgar winner and Associated Press book critic Bruce DeSilva very kindly named Bad Little Falls to his list of the Best Crime Novels of 2012. To say that I am honored and grateful doesn't really do justice to the emotions I am feeling to be included with such great books.
Paul Doiron made a big splash with his Edgar Award-nominated first novel, “The Poacher’s Son,” which introduced Maine game warden Mike Bowditch and his extraordinary talent for tracking animals and people through the worst weather that Maine can dish up. When he’s reassigned to the eponymous “Bad Little Falls,” a remote town near the Canadian border where drug abuse, unemployment, poverty, violence, and poaching are rampant, his reputation for disregarding orders precedes him and it looks as if his career has dead-ended. To him, it’s the equivalent of “being exiled to Siberia.”
The story has a strong sense of place and makes palpable the raw power that weather and water can wield. The plot is driven by the elusive possibility that this time Bowditch can redeem his career while saving Jamie and her son. Shelve this book beside the works of Steve Hamilton and William Kent Kruger, stories of strong but not macho men living in godforsaken places, bruised by past relationships, and trying to get it right this time.
You never know what news the Internet will bring. This morning I learned that Bad Little Falls is a nominee in the category of "Amateur Sleuth" in RT's 2012 Reviewers' Choice Awards. It's an interesting and diverse category. I'll be curious to see in which direction the judges go, but as is always the case with awards, it's just an honor to be nominated. (Although winning isn't bad either.)
