Review: The Poacher's Son

The Poacher's Son by Paul Doiron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Being a 24 year old first year game warden in the thick Northwest Maine forests has both pros and cons. Among the pros is the ability to live in what remains of a beautiful wilderness with its animals and trees and the sense that you are contributing to preserving it though " progress " in the form of increased population and development threatens at all times. There is a peacefulness and serenity in living close to nature in all weather and all seasons.

Among the cons is that your girlfriend doesn't share your enthusiasm for these things and is hoping you will go to law school. The change in profession would also mean an increase in financial strenght and stability. It would mean not living in a leaking cabin in the middle of nowhere, using a woodstove for heating and sweating without A/C. Also, there would be cell service so you wouldn't be cut off totally from civilization. Your hours would be better regulated--no middle of the night calls to run off a menacing bear, of evening calls to investigate the disappearance of a hiker just as dinner is to be laid on the table.

But, the biggest con of all is being the estranged son of a well known ne'er- do- well, poacher, ladies man, drunkard and now, fugitive on the run. Seems that the lumber company that owns the land in the area is trying to run the people who live on it off. Needless to say people held a meeting with company reps and lawyers in an effort to prevent the razing of their homes. After the meeting an executive of the company and his State Police bodyguard are ambushed and murdered. The chief suspect is Jack Bowditch, the father of Mike.

Putting his career on the line, Mike, who does not believe his father, as flawed as he is, could murder anyone, tries to join in the manhunt organized to find him. Jack is an experienced backwoods man not easily tracked and though he has called both Mike and Mike's remarried mother, the trail is pretty cold. Both are worried Jack will be shot on sight and neither can come up with a motive for Jack to have committed such an extreme crime.

There is lots of woods to cover, lots of characters to investigate, lots of people Jack has antagonized along the way. Did he do it? Or has he been set up?

View all my reviews