31. Trespasser - Paul Doiron

Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch  #2

read on my phone through Kindle

2011 Minotaur Books

310 pgs.

Adult murder mystery

Finished 5/30/2014

Goodreads Rating:  3.89

My Rating: 3.5 - I liked it

Setting: Midcoast Maine, in a tiny rural town with a summer colony somewhere near Rockland/Thomaston/Camden

1^st sentence/s: "I found the wreck easily enough.  It was the only red sedan with a crushed hood on the Parker Point Road.  In my headlights, the damage didn't look too extensive.  The driver had even managed to steer the car onto the muddy shoulder, where it had become mired to its hubcaps."

My comments:  I love the Maine setting and it was a good mystery. But it's hard for me to completely get into Mike Bowditch's head. He IS impetuous (I was rolling my eyes at some of the things he did) but on the other hand I don't understand why he gets into so much trouble for following his gut. He's a cop...sort of....isn't he? I do think I understood him better in the first book, though. Mixed feelings jumping around here. One other note: As much as I love, love, love the setting, it's hard to totally picture it when some of the places are real and some have the names changed. The locale in this book, Seal Cove, is an actual place on Mt. Desert Island, many miles away from the midcoast area where this is supposedly set. So the sense of "place" kept tilting itself for me.....

Goodreads Summary:   In Paul Doiron’s riveting follow-up to his Edgar Award–nominated novel,The Poacher's Son, Maine game warden Mike Bowditch’s quest to find a missing woman leads him through a forest of lies in search of a killer who may have gotten away with murder once before.    While on patrol one foggy March evening, Bowditch receives a call for help. A woman has reportedly struck a deer on a lonely coast road. When the game warden arrives on the scene, he finds blood in the road—but both the driver and the deer have vanished. And the state trooper assigned to the accident appears strangely unconcerned.

    The details of the disappearance seem eerily familiar. Seven years earlier, a jury convicted lobsterman Erland Jefferts of the rape and murder of a wealthy college student and sentenced him to life in prison. For all but his most fanatical defenders, justice was served. But when the missing woman is found brutalized in a manner that suggests Jefferts may have been framed, Bowditch receives an ominous warning from state prosecutors to stop asking questions.
    For Bowditch, whose own life was recently shattered by a horrific act of violence, doing nothing is not an option. His clandestine investigation reopens old wounds between Maine locals and rich summer residents and puts both his own life and that of the woman he loves in jeopardy. As he closes in on his quarry, he suddenly discovers how dangerous his opponents are, and how far they will go to prevent him from bringing a killer to justice.