Pitch Dark
By Paul Doiron
Mystery
Minotaur Books
June 2024
Mike Bowditch has seen a lot during his time as a Maine game warden, but his latest outing has new events, kinds of people and emotions. In Pitch Dark, Bowditch is asked to make a welfare check on an inept-seeming outsider who sets off in the woods, in bad weather, and who has been asking about a man and child who may be in the area.
He wants to get back home as soon as he can; his wife is waiting for him to take a pregnancy test to see if they are going to start a family. Before he looks for the guy on the ATV, Bowditch learns about who the man and child might be. He has concerns and questions.
With the help of Charley, his father-in-law, a retired warden, Bowditch enlists Josie, a bush pilot to take them to the site of her cabin in the woods. It's being constructed by a secretive craftsman whose work is excellent. He and his preteen daughter are living in a tent on the grounds.
When Josie, Charley and Bowditch arrive at the site, the father and daughter soon prove the game officer's worst fears true. The three are attacked and left tied up. One of them dies. Their attackers had planned for an escape if necessary. They lead Bowditch on a chase through rugged back country during a dark, rainy night that would challenge anyone's survival.
While Bowditch is in pursuit, he takes stock of himself -- is he overconfident when he shouldn't be? Does he make assumptions or take anything for granted? And not just about this pursuit, but about people. It's difficult to include musings like this during a high-stakes, twisty chase, but Doiron doesn't overdo it and so keeps disbelief suspended. And it fits the book's title: Which is darker, those who Bowditch is pursuing or the storm through which he perseveres?
Since the first book in the series, The Poacher's Son, had him chasing his own father, who was suspected of murder, Bowditch's continuing story has always included family dynamics and how he measures his worth. Pitch Dark, 15th in the series, is set up as a new chapter in his ongoing search to be the best he can.
15th in hte series?? wow.