Wild Justice

It's been a couple of weeks since I've blogged, but I have a good excuse for procrastinating: I've been working hard on my third, as yet untitled book, and I have a general rule that working on novels should always come first. 

I've also been catching up on my TV. The National Geographic Channel is airing a "reality television" series about California game wardens called Wild Justice. I'll have more to say about how the responsibilities of California wardens differ from those of Mike Bowditch, but in the meantime I wanted to flag this clip.

To get a sense of the strong reactions wardens everywhere get from the public, you should also scroll through these comments.

Wild indeed.

Backwoods Noir

I had never heard that term until I read a news item today about the film Winter's Bone. It turns out that backwoods noir is a recognized subcategory of crime fiction exemplified by the novels of Charles Williams, among others. Whether it describes The Poacher's Son is a question I'll leave to others. But I like the sound of it. 

And I Shouldn't Lack for (Maine) Readers

In these dark days of the Great Couch Potato Blight, I've often wondered about the wisdom of beginning a series of crime novels about a Maine game warden. 

Fortunately, from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife comes this news:

License sale records from the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife show that fishing license sales rose by 11 percent from 2003-2009. Despite a slight drop in hunting license sales over the same time period, sporting license sales in the state rose by 4.5 percent across the board.

What makes the numbers so noteworthy, of course, is the fact that all but one other New England state saw precipitous drops in hunting and fishing license sales during the same time period.

Cabela's, also, is doing its part to blur the division between virtual and wild. I'm not sure Monster Bass will reverse any downward trends, though:

I Will Never Lack for Material

If one is writing a series of crime novels set in the Maine woods, there will never be a shortage of mysteries to explore:

A little-touted fact come fall in Maine: It turns out hunters here stumble upon an average one to two decomposing bodies in the woods each deer season.

So three is a lot.

Officials say they can’t in recent memory recall hunters finding three in one season, and there’s still four days of firearm hunting left.

“This is my 21st fall as a game warden. Every year it seems like it’s two. Usually we know who the person is because they’ve been missing, ‘Oh that’s so-and-so,’” Major Gregg Sanborn, deputy chief of the Maine Warden Service, said Tuesday.

“It surprises me every time we find one because the state’s so big — I’ve also learned that nothing really surprises me anymore.”

First, hunters found a man in Stacyville on Nov. 4, along with clothing, a briefcase and a hat with the name “Chris.” On Nov. 15, they found a body in Vassalboro later identified as 60-year-old William Stein. Then on Nov. 20, hunters found a third man in Belmont. He was identified Tuesday as 68-year-old Charles Springer, who had wandered from home.

Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland said it’s likely Stein, a convicted child molester due to serve prison time, died in June; that Springer likely died in May 2008; and that the unidentified Stacyville man likely died in September.

None of the deaths have been labeled suspicious.

But they could have been suspicious — and in a novelist's imagination they always are.

o filho do cacador furtivo

I received a surprise in the mail the other day, the Portuguese edition of the Reader's Digest condensed version of my novel. I was startled to see my book was up first, especially when I realized who else was in the anthology with me. I love the translated title, too. So exotic sounding!