Skin and Bones
And Other Mike Bowditch Short Stories
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
For the first time in print, Skin and Bones features a collection of eight gripping original short stories in the bestselling Mike Bowditch series—including one brand new, never-before-published story—from Edgar-award nominated author Paul Doiron.
In THE BEAR TRAP, legendary Maine woodsman and bush pilot Charley Stevens tries to convince young Mike of the dangers awaiting rookie game wardens.
RABID draws Mike into the story of a gruesome case involving a bat with rabies from his Charley Steven’s past (2019 Edgar award nominee for Best Short Story).
When a visiting hunter goes missing in the middle of a snowstorm, a young Charley Stevens sets off to rescue him—but begins to suspect the man may not want to be found in BACKTRACK.
In THE IMPOSTER, Mike is confronted with a baffling case of stolen identity when he discovers a dead body whose driver’s license claims he is none other than Mike Bowditch himself.
Mike tracks down a sinister prowler who turns a couple's dream vacation home into a nightmare in THE CARETAKER.
An investigation into the killing of a bald eagle in SKIN AND BONES unearths an old case of a missing young man whose physically abusive brother might have murdered him.
In SNAKEBIT, Mike must hunt down a killer who uses the unlikeliest of murder weapons: rattlesnakes.
(Brand New!) Mike suspects there’s more to a grisly murder-suicide than meets the eye in SHEEP’S CLOTHING.
Critically acclaimed for his brilliant crime novels, Paul Doiron proves he is also the master of short story in Skin and Bones.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Doiron (Pitch Dark) presents eight top-shelf mysteries featuring Maine game warden Mike Bowditch—including the previously unpublished "Sheep's Clothing"—in this exciting collection. Two of the strongest entries center Mike's colleague and future father-in-law, Charley Stevens. In "Backtrack," Charley and Mike try to find a doctor who went missing from his hunting party during a snowstorm; "The Caretaker" sees them help the vacationing Baker family identify a home invader who's been leaving behind cryptic photographs of an old doll. Both stories illustrate Doiron's gift for character development and emotional stakes: the Bakers come into focus over the course of a few paragraphs, and "Backtrack" employs a poignant framing device that tracks the case's long impact on Charley's psyche. "Sheep's Clothing" is excellent, too, a quasi–New England gothic about Mike investigating a murder-suicide in a misfit rural family. Throughout, Doiron's evocative prose ("A shadow swept across the dooryard now, and when I looked up, I saw the first of the dozen turkey vultures that would eventually assume a holding pattern above the scene of the crime") and clever plotting work as well in the short story form as they do at novel length. This will delight existing Bowditch fans and newcomers alike.
