Thank you to @stmartinspress @minotaur_books and @Netgalley for this e-arc. All thoughts are my own.


Game Warden Mike Bowditch must chase down a cunning and dangerous fugitive in the North Maine Woods.

For investigator Bowditch, there seems to be a bunch of unusual activity in the area. He and his father-in-law fly into a secluded pond to find answers. But it isn’t long before things take a dark turn and they witness a horrific murder and are taken captive.

Mike is able to free himself but has no weapons as he takes off towards Canada in search of the fugitive. Will he be able to play and win this dangerous game of cat and mouse?


I had no idea going into this book that it was number 15 in the series! Wow. I do think that it can be read as a stand-alone, however, I wish that I would have started the series sooner just so I could spend more time with them. I really enjoyed getting to know all the characters, and even jumping in, I felt that I had known them a long time. I checked a few times to see if I had read more of these books because they all felt familiar, and it was a good feeling. This book was a great mix of characters and atmospheric reads. I absolutely loved the setting. I could feel myself being transported to the woods and remote setting with the characters. The pacing was great. It moved along at a nice pace, and while it wasn’t lighting fast, it did go at a nice clip to where I didn’t want to put it down because I just had to know what was happening next.

I think an extra layer of fun for me was that the main character was a game warden and that isn’t a career that I know much about, so it was interesting to get to know more.

The author said on the goodreads page that he had a lot of fun writing this book, and I think that it really shined through in the pages. There was a lot of emotion that came through and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Pitch Dark by Paul Doiron

304 Pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books
Release Date: June 25, 2024

Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Troubled Children

Mike Bowditch is a game warden with the Maine Warden Service. When rookie, Brandon Barstow, calls him to report a possible missing person. The missing man, Ammon Pratt, was looking for Mark Redmond, a cabin builder.

Mike contacts his father-in-law, retired chief pilot warden, Chuck Stevens. Together they go to see Josie, a bush pilot. They ask her to take them to the remote cabin she is having built in the Canadian border. Josie tells them about Mark and his eleven-year-old daughter, Cady. They live off the grid and have little interaction with people. This makes Mike uneasy and makes him hurry to find them.

The book is fast paced, the characters are somewhat developed, and it is written in the first-person point of view. The book takes place over the course of a couple of days. There is a lot of action and adventure during the search. If you like action packed mysteries, you may enjoy reading this book.

This book was good.

This is my second book by Doiron and the second Mike Bowditch book for me. The vibe is very neo-western in these mysteries. There is a ton of action, some lovely setting-building of Maine-Canadian borderlands, and complex character building.

The plotting is solid and there were a few twists and surprises. The second half of the book was completely action packed and the pacing was super fast.

I enjoyed this book; I would read him again.

It was a dark, stormy, dangerous night!

A missing person search leads Mike Bowditch and his father-in-law to fly-in-cabin in the woods near the Canadian border. Mike will have to use every last ounce of his game warden skills to capture a fugitive and rescue a young girl during a massive storm. Heavy winds and flooding have blocked roads making travel dangerous with falling trees. But even more dangerous may be the man he is pursuing. Can he catch him in time? Can he save the young girl? Will this pursuit lose him his job or his life?

As always, Paul Doiron is a deft hand at ratcheting up the tension! The camaraderie between Mike and Charley Stevens is ever-present. This time Mike is mainly on his own in his pursuit. His dogged persistence and mule-headed determination may be the death of him yet. As usual, Mike’s methods may land him in hot water with the brass, on both sides of the border!

Fast-paced action and a killer read! A very entertaining addition to the Mike Bowditch series! Highly recommend.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books for access to a digital ARC on NetGalley.

Mike Bowditch returns in Pitch Dark which aptly describes the conditions in the North Maine woods where most of the action takes place. There is a lot of action. Actually, there's an awful lot of action which even extends into Canada. Doiron entertains us with another gripping adventure. While I personally liked Dead Man's Wake better, this is still a good addition to the series. The supporting cast of characters is strong. There is a worthy adversary for Bowditch and a bounty hunter who, to be frank, was my favorite character in the book. My only issue with Pitch Dark is the fact there are several moments where Bowditch is not very likable. "What a jerk," I thought more than once. It wasn't quite to the point where I was cheering for the bad guy, but it was close. Still, that didn't keep me from enjoying the book. Thank you to St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books, and NetGalley for the advance reading copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was a very suspenseful book, with lots of action. The main character was likeable and interesting. The little girl was a mystery. I keep thinking about her. Very sad about those that died. I would recommend this book to anybody, especially those interested in the Maine woods, and close to the border.

Mike responds to a call to find a missing tourist. The routine call unleashes a game of cat and mouse as he refuses to give up on doing the right thing.

Another heart pounding story.

I have listened to every Mike Bowditch book in the series by Paul Doiron on Audible. I absolutely love them. The narrator is fantastic and I can envision every scene, character, and aspect of the books. This is my first "physical read" of the series. The one book I decide to read was actually very different from his past works. It focused on more of a survivalist's type theme rather than the dramatics and relationships of the usual characters - Mike, Charley, Kathy..... which I really enjoy. Unfortunately, it wasn't one of my favorites. I didn't hate it...but I'm not sure if it's the content or I just prefer the audio version - or both.

Always good writing, wonderful characters, just not my favorite one in the series. A solid 3 stars. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC!

Game warden heroes in wilderness settings have become increasingly popular in the mystery genre. Pitch Dark is the first book I've read in the long-running Mike Bowditch series by Paul Doiron, but the novel works as a standalone. This reviewer was able to connect with game warden Bowditch inside the Maine wilderness in the first few pages. The plot is straightforward and remains in Bowditch's POV, which I especially liked.

This game warden is tough, though he can be as easygoing or hardnosed as the situation warrants. In Pitch Dark we see the gentle love and respect he has for his family, followed by his furious determination to capture a murderer. Despite overwhelming odds, Bowditch moves through the wilderness alone and unrelenting in his quest to stop a criminal. The story tension ratchets higher with each mile Bowditch covers in the rain, the cold, and the muck to track the killer.

Pitch Dark is a crime novel with lots of action and adventure and enough twists and turns to keep readers engaged from the first chapter to the last. The characters are as unique as the setting, the suspense never lags, and the story is brought to a satisfying conclusion.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St Martins Press for providing an advance copy of this book to read and review. This review will post to Bayside Book Reviews at https://baysidebookreviews.com and its Instagram page on release day. Follow us! *NetGalley Top Reviewer*

The latest installment in the Mike Bowditch, game warden of Maine, series is called Pitch Dark. I have read all of the Bowditch series. I can't really tell you why as outside of Doiron and Donna Leon I have almost completely given up on the crime/police procedural books. It is a broken genre with a sharply limited literally style and content This 15th installment in the Doiron/Bowditch series is no exception. The book has absolutely nothing to do with game wardens or "game" and is a slugfest and kill fest where the acts and deeds of the protagonist and his many antagonists are unbelievable and seem to be completely out of this world. in truth, a real person would have died by Bowditch's third episode. In this book we have bad guys turning into good guys and good girls becoming very bad girls. One of the bad/good guys is apparently 7 inches taller than Bowditch who is 6 feet 2 inches tall. Making the other guy 6 foot 9 inches. I can hardly imagine that. But that is nothing in comparison to the same guy bulling his way through lakes and unspecified wilderness while being gut shot. We do learn some interesting things about the American/Canadian border, but for all the talk of geography there is little lively description of the landscape. The landscape, like all the characters in the story, are barely etched. Everything is in the propulsion to the end. The book was absurd. And, I'll probably read volume 16 and onwards. PS; one great thing about the book is Doiron has dropped the mawkish sensitivity that permeated previous books. The reason: instead of pining for the girl he should/shouldn't have, he has finally married her.

This is a story of a manhunt by a Game Warden in the North Woods of Maine, near the Canadian border. The woods themselves are dark and sinister, with dripping wet downed trees, described as “widow makers”, blocking Mike Bowditch’s trail to locate a man and his daughter. The pacing is fast, with Mike shoving off the effects of being drugged and lack of sleep to follow the fugitives, even if he has to cross jurisdictional lines into Canada. Mike’s wolfdog made an appearance in the story, as did his father-in-law Charley, which was a nice link to Mike’s backstory. Plenty of twists and turns make this an exciting read.

About a year ago, I came across a Paul Doiron book involving Maine Game Warden Mick Bowditch, <cite>Dead Man's Wake</cite>, and rather enjoyed it. I have a particular attachment to Maine because I have been vacationing on the shores of one or another of Maine's lakes for more than two decades now. So, I enjoy reading Doiron's books on the adventures of Mike Bowditch to get in shape, so to speak, for my next year's vacation. This current book came up on my radar and I couldn't refuse it. It's the latest in a series that covers almost twenty books now. Technically, it's the 15th book of the series, but there appear to be some in-between books that have come out.

Anyway, Mike has recently married Stacey Stevens, the daughter of his friend and mentor, Charlie Stevens. Stacey thinks she might be pregnant, so is contemplating taking a test to find out for sure. They decide to put things off for a day, so of course something comes up and Mike is away and in grave danger for the next several days.

The initial problem appears to be that someone, apparently named Hammond Pratt (actually, it's Ammon Pratt, but someone appears to have "mature" hearing and, like yours truly, doesn't always hear things clearly). Anyway, Pratt had been asking around about a guy named Mark Redmond. Pratt disappeared, but Redmond was found to be out in the wilderness building a custom cabin for a woman named Josie Jonson, who was a helicopter pilot who worked with Maine Wardens, and thus well known to Mike's friend and mentor, Charlie Stevens. Mark was living pretty much off the grid with his 12-year-old daughter, Cady. This got Mike a bit suspicious. Also, he worried a bit about child abuse, because Cady didn't seem to be getting much schooling or socialization with others. In addition, Cady showed signs of self harm, e.g. scarred wrists.

I won't go on much longer, but it turns out that Redmond and Cady are actually named Paul and Chloé Renaud, and they are on the lam from some shenanigans in Canada. As Mike tracks them, they head back to Canada, and naturally, Mike gets into some trouble because of his going off to Canada after them without first clearing things with the proper authorities. As readers of this series will know, Mike tends to cut a few "official corners" now and again, and seems always to find ways to get himself in trouble with the authorities.

Anyway, it's a well-written, gripping story, and well worth one's time. So far, I've read ten of Doiron's books about the adventures of Mike Bowditch, and have yet to find a single one that wasn't a treat to read.

#PitchDark #NetGalley

Game Warden Mike Bowditch becomes concerned when he hears that a stranger is asking the whereabouts of a man and his daughter. He and his father-in-law request the assistance of bush pilot, Josie Johnson to fly him to the sight where the father and daughter are staying as he builds Josie’s dream cabin. When they arrive things are very troubling and suspicious. After all three ate drugged and tied to trees, Bowditch makes his escape but only after Josie dies. Thus begins Bowditch’s pursuit of father and daughter. It is a harrowing pursuit and has dangers and surprises along the way. I enjoyed and recommend this book.

The tile for this book is Pitch Dark and it is appropriate. The story definitely has a very dark, disturbing side. Mike hears a visitor has gone missing and was asking about a loner and his daughter who live off the grid. He and his father-in-law, Charlie, head off with a friend of Charlie’s on her helicopter to visit them and ask about the missing visitor.
Things begin to go downhill quickly and soon it is just Mike tracking the father and daughter and trying to figure out who they actually are and what exactly is going on. Mike makes some hard decisions which end him up in official trouble, but after everything he’s learned and seen on this trip, he accepts it.
This is a deeply troubling story and not my favorite Bowditch novel, but it is well-written and a tense mystery/survival story.
Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the ARC.

Pitch Dark is a Mike Bowditch novel. Mike is a Maine game warden investigator. He hears about a man and his daughter in the boonies and is concerned for the girl’s safety. He flies up there with a pilot and Charley - his mentor/friend/father-in-law. He doesn’t expect the chain of events his arrival causes. Soon he is in a chase against a man who is very dangerous.
This is a very interesting mystery with well drawn characters. I like the way the story flows and enjoyed reading this book.

Game Warden Mike Bowditch is on the hunt for a dangerous fugitive in the North Woods of Maine. With his father-in-law Charley they contact Charley's friend Josie to fly them to her cabin that is being built in the woods by the suspected fugitive. The three of them end up drugged and captured with dire consequences. Once Mike is free he begins his pursuit of the fugitive and his young daughter who seems to be one step ahead of Mike at every turn. Little does Mike know the real story surrounding the fugitive and in the end it seems the most unbelievable story he has ever heard and even knowing it is true Mike has a very hard time believing it.

This was the first book I have read in the series, but that being said I think it reads well as a stand alone book. There were a lot of plots that were revealed along the way with twists and turns that kept it interesting. However, I did not find any of the characters, with the exception of Charley, particularly endearing. Mike was a bit cavalier and often didn’t appear to think things through before acting. I also found the ending a bit abrupt. What happened to the other characters? Was Mike ever charged with crimes in Canada and keep his job in Maine? A few too many loose ends for my liking.

Mike Bowditch is back in the 15th book in the addictive, thrilling, shocking and pulse pounding Mike Bowditch series!!!! If someone had told me that I would love a book series about a Maine Game warden so much, I would not have believed them. But Paul Doiron never disappoints, and this series continues to be one of my favorites. I love the vivid descriptions, the danger, the regular cast of characters, and the dire situations in which Mike finds himself. Plus, in Pitch Dark, Mike is a married man and has interesting things going on in his life.

There is a dangerous fugitive deep in the Maine woods who comes on Mike's radar when he receives a phone call informing him that a man is missing in the woods. The missing man has been searching for Mark Redmond and his daughter, Cady. Mark Redmond happens to be building a home for a pilot friend. When Mike, his father-in-law, Charley, and Josie Johnson (the pilot friend) arrive to ask some questions, things get interesting and dangerous fast!

This book was full of tension, mounting dread, danger, action, suspense, and atmosphere. I love the vivid descriptions of the woods. The descriptions have me feeling as if I am right there deep in the investigation and action. As I mentioned, I loved seeing all the characters I have come to know over the course of the series. I enjoy getting glimpses into not only their work life, but their personal lives as well. Fans of the series need not worry; Shadow is in this book as well. Charley remains a favorite of mine with his wit, knowledge, delivery, courage, and kindness.

Another great book by Paul Doiron. I can't recommend this book enough. This book would work as a stand-alone but do yourself a favor and go back to the beginning and read the whole series. You'll thank me!

Wonderfully written, well thought out, gripping and full of thrilling moments!

I am a big fan of Paul Doiron’s novels. This book is the newest in the series featuring Mike Bowditch, a Maine Game Warden. This is book 15 in the series but can easily be read as a stand alone. Doiron is such a good writer and this book is particularly atmospheric and fast paced, along with terrific characters. No spoilers! Recommend reading Paul Doiron’s books!!

Note: Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Paul Doiron for the advanced reader copy of the book.  What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

Pitch Dark is the fifteenth book in Paul Doiron’s series about Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch. Much has changed from the first book in the series. While I think you can read Pitch Dark without having read the earlier books, the character’s development in those books makes it easier to understand why he makes some of the choices he does here.

Mike is enjoying a night at home with his wife Stacy when he receives a call from a rookie Warden in the northwest part of the state of Maine. There’s a report of a missing ATV rider from one of the lodges up there. This is unusual because spring season (or mud season) usually isn’t a time when people descend on the state to ride ATVs on logging roads. Before he disappeared, the man was asking around about a father and daughter living off the grid in the area.

Josie Jonson is a bush pilot who has someone matching that description building a log cabin for her in that remote location. Worried that someone nefarious might be looking for the father and daughter and with no other way to get up to them, Mike and his father-in-law Charley, a former Game Warden pilot himself, travel by helicopter with Josie up to the location.

What follows is a gripping, edge-of-your-seat tale that kept me turning the page until I reached the end. Paul Doiron has always been able to craft a tale with twists and turns that had me guessing, incorrectly, what was going on. Here, I can honestly say I did not see the end coming.

Doiron’s descriptions of the Maine Woods in this area is accurate. I’ve been up this way and traveled on the Golden Road, which he refers to frequently. It’s really amazing how desolate it is. He details the spring season with patches of green amidst the brown and the dreariness of the frequent rain as well as the power of the rivers and streams draining off the snowmelt. The story is told from Mike’s perspective, so the descriptions are his observations of what he sees around him as he’s tracking people through the woods. It’s the perspective of someone who notices things others miss and makes for a great setting.

There were a number of times I really had to suspend disbelief. Mike isn’t quite the “Superman” surviving injuries that would kill most, but he does seem to have an unusual amount of good luck as he’s tracking his quarry through the woods at this time of year. Many times I thought he should have turned back or given up, but where would the story be if he had? Although his personal story ends on something of a cliffhanger, the way the pursuit and its consequences resolve itself seems a little too convenient. However, it’s also good to know the series will continue.

Pitch Dark is a great addition to the story of Mike Bowditch. He asks some questions about his future that he’s not sure of the answers just yet. Should he blow his career as a Warden Investigator for one case, even if it means saving the life of a child? The reckless Mike of earlier books definitely would, but here he hesitates. He’s grown and evolved but there’s still that stubborn, headstrong streak that sometimes leads him to make choices most people wouldn’t. It’s this well-developed character that keeps me coming back to the series.