"Bad Little Falls" Shines

In his "Out There" blog for the Bangor Daily News, columnist John Holyoke has some very nice things to say about my forthcoming novel:

Set deep in the Maine woods, in the dead of winter, Bowditch (as he often does) happens upon a crime that isn’t what it seems. As he digs deeper, he runs into all kinds of interesting Maine characters. Some are friends. Some are foes. And he’s never quite sure which is which. All of which, of course, serve to ratchet the tension level page by page, chapter by chapter.

Doiron doesn’t really need my praise here. He gets enough of that when his books are nominated for Anthony and Edgar awards (which they have been).

His previous novels, “The Poacher’s Son” and “Trespasser,” have been best-sellers.

I’m certain that “Bad Little Falls” will follow suit.

I can only hope that he's prophetic on that last point. 

I've written before about how meaningful it is to me to have Maine readers respond so favorably to my books. Like most novelists I think of myself as writing about universal themes for what I hope will be a world-wide audience. But there's undeniably something sweet about getting a positive response from readers who know the region you're writing about. Maybe it's the journalist in me, but it's important to hear that I've gotten things right.

Let Me Tell You About Mike Bowditch

At Maine Crime Writers today, my fellow authors and myself decided to use our group post to introduce our various protagonists to readers unfamiliar with our books. Here's some of what I wrote about Warden Mike Bowditch:

Mike Bowditch is no hero when we meet him [in The Poacher's Son]: He is impetuous, self-destructive, incapable of intimacy, and tormented by memories of his bullying and emotionally distant father. But he is physically courageous, highly intelligent, observant of the world around him (especially the natural world), and he has a good heart. Most importantly, Mike understands how screwed-up he is, and the thing he wants most out of life is to be a better man. I get letters from readers who are frustrated by the many mistakes Mike makes (one Amazon reviewer memorably expounded on the multitudinous ways in which he considered my rookie warden to be a loser). But I also get emails from readers who tell me how real Mike feels as a character because of his flaws.

Amazon reviews are actually fascinating windows into the various ways that people read your books. Of course, it's always satisfying when people tell you how much they love your novels. But the bad reviews, frankly, are more intriguing in their idiosyncracies. It's kind of the Anna Karenina principle at work: "Good reviews are all alike; each negative review is negative in its own way."

But that's a subject for another post....

Influences: James Lee Burke

Today at Maine Crime Writers I have a post about the great novelist James Lee Burke and his influence on my own development as a writer. Burke's Louisiana couldn't be any different from my Maine woods, and yet I have always strived to do a little of what he does so well and bring my part of the world to life for readers who have never seen it before.


On an entirely unrelated note, Burke and I are both of Acadian descent. The Doiron family lived in what is now Nova Scotia before Le Grand Derangement. At that time, many Acadian clans were divided; some ended up in the Louisiana bayous and became the people we know as Cajuns, while others took to the woods of New Brunswick, one step ahead of their British oppressors. My branch of the family took to the woods. But the Baton Rouge phonebook is full of Doirons whose ancestors got shipped out of Port Royal for points south.


On another entirely unrelated note, James Lee Burke is a cousin of the writers Andre Dubus and Andre Dubus III, both of whom have also been important influences on my work.

PW Gives "Bad Little Falls" a Starred Boxed Review!

The new issue of "Publisher's Weekly" is out with an absolutely glowing review of Bad Little Falls. It calls the new Mike Bowditch novel "excellent" and praises its "strong characters, effective prose, and subtle characterizations." This period, when you're waiting for the pre-pub reviews to appear is one of those nervous times in an author's life, since many bookstores and libraries take their ordering cues from these journals. A starred, boxed review in "PW" —which indicates a book is of outstanding quality in the eyes of the reviewer — is an auspicious start to what I hope will be a string of favorable notices. If you can't read the clip below, click this link to go the magazine's Web site.