Review: Widowmaker

Widowmaker by Paul Doiron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Jack Bowditch is the deceased father that just keeps on giving and not in a good way. His reputation as a disreputable poacher and all round no good guy mars every aspect of his son's life. No matter where Mike goes in his job as a Maine Wildlife Warden he is confronted by somebody who knew and very much hated his father. Some of the people he encounters are Wardens whose lives were made miserable trying to catch the elder Bowditch or people who employed Jack to their misfortune or fellow barflies who came out on the wrong end of a barfight with him.

This time, however, the person wronged is a former lover -- a barmaid with her own checkered reputation--who claims that her son, fathered by Jack, is missing. Seems this long lost younger " brother" was found guilty of statutory rape, sentenced to prison and is now on parole. He had been living in a lumber camp run by a guy who hires convicted sex offenders in an effort to give them a second chance in life. The kid, only 21 years old, has disappeared from the camp and his mother is worried that something serious has happened to him

Having just escaped serious injury in a confrontation with a couple of druggies, Mike is on sick leave and with nothing better to do with his time decides to snoop around a bit to help the woman out. Needless to say, this being Mike Bowditch, a little snooping leads to a massive investigation that even involves the best character in the book--an all black wolf dog named Shadow. And unlike most of the characters in the book, Shadow has the happiest ending to his story!

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