Hatchet Island

January 1, 2022

When a sea-kayaking venture takes Maine game warden Mike Bowditch and girlfriend Stacey Stevens to an archipelago serving as a research center and sanctuary for endangered seabirds, they encounter two murdered researchers, and a third is missing. The multiplying suspects include the sanctuary's conveniently absent owner and an arrogant artist who rules over his own island kingdom. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

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April 15, 2022
A distress call takes Game Warden Mike Bowditch to a part of Maine he rarely sees: the tiny, rugged islands off the coast. Kendra Ballard, project manager for the Maine Seabird Initiative, is seriously worried about the Initiative's future. It's come under pressure from local fishers whose attitude toward nature is unapologetically different from hers, and Kendra's particularly worried about her boss, Dr. Maeve McLeary. So she asks her old college roommate, bush pilot/biologist/EMT/kayaking guide Stacey Stevens, if she'll come out to visit and bring Mike, the lover with whom she's recently been reunited after two years--and she also asks if Mike will please bring his gun. Mike and Stacey's initial inquiries confirm Kendra's suspicions that there's trouble brewing in the place to which famed photographer Clay Markham has retired and that Maeve is indeed seriously disturbed. Apart from Kendra's story about intern Evan Levandowski's suicide and Mike's unsettling confrontation with surly lobsterman Bear Goodale and his mate Chris Beckwith, however, it's hard to put a finger on the source of the troubles. After an attack on a camp they've pitched on an island rumored to be littered with unexploded bombs leaves Kendra and one of her current interns dead and obscenely posed and the other intern missing, it's no more clear who led the assault or why. Only the suicide of Maeve herself begins to bring the mystery into focus. Before it's solved, Mike will have to call on every one of Stacey's impressive list of skills and practice a couple he didn't know he had himself. Slow to get underway but the payoff is worth the wait.

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Starred review from April 18, 2022
Edgar finalist Doiron’s exceptional 13th mystery featuring Maine game warden Mike Bowditch (after 2021’s Dead by Dawn) takes Bowditch and his significant other, biologist Stacey Stevens, to Baker Island after Stacey receives a request for help from her college roommate and former colleague, Kendra Ballard, who’s been working on the island as the project manager for the Maine Seabird Initiative’s restoration efforts there. Kendra is worried about her boss, Maeve McLeary, who hasn’t been heard from for several days. That disturbing silence comes shortly after Maeve incurred the wrath of local lobstermen by successfully backing a proposal to close part of the Gulf of Maine to their boats to protect endangered whales. The restoration project has since been receiving anonymous threats, and someone shot up its observation blinds. Kendra’s fears of violence prove justified as Bowditch soon has two murders on the island to solve, which may be connected to a young man’s recent death by suicide. The author is especially good at conveying the island’s creepy atmosphere, and the taut plot features numerous shocking twists while further developing an already complex lead. Doiron is writing at the top of his game. Agent: Ann Rittenberg, Ann Rittenberg Literary.

Starred review from May 1, 2022
If you can't make it to coastal Maine this summer, let Doiron take you there in your armchair. The aromas and seascapes are intense when Maine game warden Mike Bowditch and his girlfriend, Stacey Stevens, kayak across some turbulent waters to Baker Island, where the atmosphere matches the surf. Stacey was once a summer intern there at a sanctuary for seabirds, including some endangered, roly-poly puffins. One of her former colleagues, a biologist, has reached out to her, concerned that she and others are being stalked at night by a trespasser from a neighboring island. And the project's founder has gone missing. After a restless night of camping, Mike and Stacey are awakened by a gunshot. They find two members of the sanctuary's team brutally bludgeoned and left in macabre poses. Mike looks for answers on nearby Ayer's Island, home to a legendary and eccentric photographer. Is it possible this man, or his peculiar prot�g�, would kill for art's sake? The island's inhabitants, living there free at the photographer's behest, are reluctant to share any information. The awful truth is revealed on a third island, Hatchet Island, site of an abandoned quarry. Following Dead by Dawn (2021), Doiron again delivers what we've come to expect from this series: brilliant characterizations, relentless action and suspense, and an intricately plotted narrative. The perfect vacation read.

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