Dead by Dawn
A Novel
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4.1 • 16 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Maine game warden Mike Bowditch finds himself in a life-or-death chase in this next thriller in the bestselling series by Edgar Award nominee Paul Doiron, Dead by Dawn.
Mike Bowditch is fighting for his life. After being ambushed on a dark winter road, Bowditch crashes his Jeep into a frozen river. Trapped beneath the ice in the middle of nowhere, having lost his gun and any way to signal for help, Mike fights his way to the surface. But surviving the crash is only the first challenge. Whoever set the trap that ran him off the road is still out there, and they’re coming for him.
Hours earlier, Mike had been called to investigate the suspicious drowning of a wealthy professor. Despite the death being ruled an accident, the victim's elegant, eccentric daughter-in-law insists the man was murdered. She suspects his companion that day, a reclusive survivalist and conspiracy theorist who accompanied the professor on his fateful duck-hunting trip—but what exactly was the nature of their relationship? And was her own sharp-tongued daughter, who inherited the dead man’s fortune, as close to her grandfather as she claims? The accusations lead Mike to a sinister local family who claim to have information on the crime. But when his Jeep flies into the river and unknown armed assailants on snowmobiles chase him through the wilderness, the investigation turns into a fight for survival.
As Mike faces a nightlong battle to stay alive, he must dissect the hours leading up to the ambush and solve two riddles: which one of these people desperately want him dead, and what has he done to incur their wrath?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of Edgar finalist Doiron's nail-biting 12th mystery featuring Maine game warden Mike Bowditch (after 2020's One Last Lie), Bowditch runs his Jeep off the road into the icy Androscoggin River after his tires are shredded by metal spikes intentionally left in the road. The game warden escapes from his submerged vehicle, but he risks hypothermia. Flash back to earlier that morning. Mariëtte Chamberlain asks Bowditch, who has a reputation for solving cold cases, to reinvestigate her father-in-law's death. Four years earlier, professor Eben Chamberlain, formerly of the British foreign service, was duck hunting on the Androscoggin when he apparently fell out of his boat and drowned. Since Chamberlain, according to Mariëtte, never would have taken off his life vest, she suspects foul play. Bowditch agrees to do a little digging and is soon headed for trouble. Doiron builds tension by alternating between his lead's battle to survive and the inquiry into Chamberlain's death, which he effectively doles out in small segments. This entry stands as the best yet in a superior series.
Customer Reviews
Dead By Dawn
Awesome read
Truly, The Best One Yet.
(Spoilers, and I am prone to being long-winded about books, fair warning!)
I picked up The Poacher’s Son the year Stay Hidden came out, and devoured the series in less than a month. Frankly, I haven’t read a lot in this genre and I have read even less material from a male perspective. This series, however, I have read over and over. Something about Mike Bowditch is compelling. I relate to his chronic nostalgia, because I often feel very much the same about the area I grew up. He’s likeable and human and flawed and complex. Mike feels real, in the way a truly well-written character does.
Doiron really balances the forward momentum of plot and character. I like the little bits of exposition, the interesting facts that lend context and create interesting pacing. Every beat hits right, every twist and turn in the plot feels like the natural, but not always expected, progression. Well paced, certainly not always predictable, but very true to the character and the world he has crafted.
In Dead By Dawn, Mike feels like he’s a darker place but not necessarily in a bad way. I reread the entire series leading up to this release, and I was struck by how much growing Mike has done while still remaining very recognizable. The humour hits right, the smart aleck remarks feel organic, and the intelligent and oh-so-slightly cynical lens through which Mike views the world, and himself, is very well calibrated. He’s learned a few things about humanity over the course of his career, himself included. Mike hasn’t let the world divest him of his moral compass or compassion, in spite of everything.
Main character aside, Doiron has created a cast of secondary characters equally as compelling, if less well known, as his protagonist. As a young woman reading these novels, I never feel condescended to in the writing of the female characters, particularly in Kathy, Aimee, Dani, or Stacey. They are real and flawed and strong all in their individual ways- as real women are. Mike’s interactions with them and the lessons he learns from them are meaningful and sincere. My compliments to Doiron’s ability to capture it as many male authors have not.
I really, truly enjoy Doiron’s style and the world he created in the Mike Bowditch mysteries, and I look forward to the next instalment. See you next June! :)