The Poacher’s Son by Paul Doiron introduces the young game warden Mike Bowditch in the first Mike Bowditch mystery. Mike is still adjusting to being a rookie game warden and doing his best to learn the tricks of the trade when he receives a middle of the night call about a bear attacking a local man’s pig. After tracking and then losing the bear he returns home only to find a mysterious message from his semi-estranged father on his answering machine. Reluctant to deal with it he ignores the message and goes on his way. However, he quickly discovers that may not have been the smart thing to do when he is informed that his father is the prime suspect in a shooting upstate that killed two people, one of them a member of law enforcement like himself. Though well aware of his father, Jack’s, penchant for violence Mike is still convinced he is innocent as the motive makes no sense. He heads towards the scene of the investigation only to learn that his father was arrested but escaped and is now a fugitive from justice. Now Mike must confront his own past and his present in order to get the truth, is his father a killer?
This book was interesting in that it rather broke the mold of the traditional mystery novel in many ways. I say that because I don’t think I have come across another series or even an individual book where the detective is a game warden. Typically, you see various levels of law enforcement such as local or state police or even FBI and sometimes you get reporters or medical examiners but the game warden was a new one for me. It made for an interesting angle and viewpoint and will hopefully add some interesting elements to future investigations. In terms of the actual story though it seemed to be pretty typical and easily followed. There wasn’t a lot of guesswork needed and it all played out pretty much as I expected from fairly early on. Don’t get me wrong as the story was good and I did enjoy reading it but the only thing that was surprising and felt new or unexpected was the protagonist being a game warden. This was only the first book though so I am hopeful there will be more things that stand out in later works in the series. The one other thing I was impressed by was the detail that was used when describing the job of being a game warden and the local terrain and wildlife. That indicated a lot of research or a lot of familiarity with that which was nice to see. Overall, a decent work that hopefully starts a decent series so I am giving it 3.5 out of 5 stars.
This book is an adult mystery novel so it would probably hold the most appeal for readers who tend to enjoy that type of work though keep in mind it is not a cozy mystery. While the book as a whole is actually a pretty easy read there are several rather intense scenes towards the end, in terms of violence but also just in general, that may be difficult for some readers. Nothing that would be overly concerning and is typical of the genre as a whole though. I would recommend younger readers to be careful and that no one younger than about fifteen should probably read this. The book was still pretty good though so if this sounds like it might be interesting, consider trying it. If you do, think about sharing your thoughts in the comments.