The Maine Sportsman calls Trespasser: "Compelling and Real"

The Maine Sportsman has a review of Trespasser in its September issue, and I am delighted by what reviewer George Smith has to say:

Paul Doiron wrote a great first novel, superb really. Not only did he start right out of the novelist’s box with an unusual three-book contract, but his first novel was nominated for an Edgar Award, heady territory for any mystery writer.

I enjoyed Paul’s first novel and wrote a favorable review. But his second book, Trespasser (Minotaur Books, 2011), pleased me more. It was a “kept-me-up-late” mystery, compelling, suspenseful and true-to-life.

I know this is important to Paul because his primary character is a Maine game warden and Paul has spent a lot of time studying and riding with wardens. In his character Mike Bowditch, Paul has done a great job of accurately portraying a rookie warden.

Well, most rookie wardens wouldn’t get into the scrapes that Bowditch does, but that’s why they’re wardens and not characters in mystery novels.

Actually, everything rings true in this novel, from the warden chaplain to the wealthy summer residents. (Can it be that Doiron knows folks like this in Camden?)

A crucial incident that drives much of the plot, a car-deer collision, anchors the book in reality. After the woman hits the deer, someone murders her and the deer vanishes. Bowditch goes rogue, houses burn, ATVs crash and a convicted murderer may be innocent. I just could not stop reading.

I could see every bit of it happening in Maine. The conflict between game wardens and state troopers is another plot line familiar to me.

I love the way Doiron is moving forward with Bowditch’s relationship with his girlfriend. Certainly, relationships in law enforcement are difficult, and Doiron captures this in a very real way.

By way of full disclosure, I should note that George Smith is a blogger for Down East but also one of the most knowledgable mystery readers (and outdoorsmen) I've met and not one to soft-sell his criticism.

Scroll down to read the whole thing.

Maine Warden Service Part 1

I write about a fictional version of the Maine Warden Service. Mike Bowditch is not a real warden (if he were he would have been fired by now), but I do my best to give some sense of what the actual profession is like and the actual challenges Maine game wardens face. I hope I do so in a way that respects the sacrifices, bravery, and professionalism of the real men and women of the service.

Last year was the 130th anniversary of the Maine Warden Service. As part of the ceremony, Corporal John MacDonald and his team created a series of videos that do a far better job than my books at capturing their important but misunderstood profession. Here's the first installment in the series with two others to follow here over the next few days.

A Study in Censorship

Alyssa Rosenberg has an interesting item today about a move by the Albemarle County School Board to take a Study in Scarlet off the sixth-grade reading list. The boardmembers deemed the first Sherlock Holmes novel insufficiently respectful to Mormons. 

While lost of accusations of racism, sexism, or anti-religious bias that lead to book-banning are specious or un-subtle, this is a sensationalistic novel. There’s no question that Arthur Conan Doyle’s depiction of Mormonism in A Study in Scarlet, written in 1886, 42 years after Joseph Smith’s death but four years before the 1890 manifesto that disavowed plural marriage in the church, is sensationalist. The plot revolves heavily around a forced plural marriage and Mormon military units like the Danite bands. 

Rosenberg points out that the book isn't entirely unsympathetic to Mormons, and the sensationalism flows in many directions. No one, she says, would ever mistake it for a definitive history of the Church of Latter Day Saints.

And more importantly, even if the details are sensationalistic, it is true that plural marriage and defense of the faith by force are part of early Mormon history. There’s a difference between a right to have the fact that you believe treated with respect, and the right to have the history your faith presented only the terms that make you comfortable, no matter the actual facts. Children also have a right to learn critical thinking in school, and works that offend no one are unlikely to help them develop those skills.

She would like to see the Baker Street Irregulars purchase a bunch of Sherlock Holmes books for Albemarle County schoolkids in response. That's a cause I would gladly support.