A man's dismembered body is found on the lake, and Game Warden Mike Bowditch is on the scene to begin the investigation...

This one seemed from the blurb like one I'd be into. It was shelved as a Thriller, and was (unfortunately) absolutely not. At best, it’s a police procedural. Had I realized this was #14 in a series, I likely wouldn’t have picked it, as these extended story lines and generally forced witty banter situations between characters I’m unfamiliar with aren’t my vibe.

One thing that never sits well with me for these extended series books is how much author's tend to double down and fill the book with 'knowledge' on things they may or may not have. Usually, this isn't something I know a lot about, so I tend to just ignore it, but this time they caught my attention with all the plane details.

((Enter, Pedantic Pilot Mode)) About 2/3 through the book, Bowditch takes a plane from Maine to New Hampshire as part of the investigation, and mentions that the pilot flew to 3000 feet, and he doesn't think he's ever been that high in a Cessna.

3000 ft is crazy low. The NH average elevation is 1,000 ft (Maine's in an average of 600 ft), so 3,000 is probably too low to safely fly, especially over densely populated areas or forests, as you want to give yourself plenty of time to glide to safety in the event of an emergency. Usually I wouldn’t be rail on this here, but the author writes a lot about flight and the procedure as though they have some knowledge, and this one sticks in my craw. Even for a “skip and hop” flights, you're going to climb to at least 3,000 ft ABOVE ground level in a situation like this. Additionally, flying from Maine to New Hampshire would be a generally west bound flight, so the pilot would be flying at an even thousand + 500 ft for safety and visibility, which would mean that the pilot should have picked 4,500 ft for this trip. While it is within the FAA regulations that you can fly at lower elevations and don't need to follow that rule for visual flight at all times, it wouldn't make sense for this flight given that all other indications mentioned clear skies and high cloud ceilings.

Needless to say, when there was note of an emergency on board, I couldn't help but think "and THIS is why a responsible pilot would have climbed to a higher elevation here!" Final pedantic note: for as much as they talked about pre-flights, she flubbed the preflight on the 2nd go. This would have been an easy one to catch had the checklist been followed. The FAA & NTSB will have a fair bit to say when that investigation plays out.

Finally, if the issue was indeed water in the tanks, because water is heavier than fuel, it would have landed them with an engine out at takeoff or while they were still in the pattern, not a ways into the trip. This would have, indeed, been a very dangerous situation, as there is little to no elevation left there to recover and land safely. ((End Pedantic Pilot Mode))

I feel like if they're going to dive so deeply into the tiny details, it's pretty important to get them right.

All in, the story was decent to follow even without the back-story knowledge, and I think that folks who like these cozy police procedurals will enjoy this one, but it really wasn't for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Paul Doiron has done it again!!!! Another gripping, tense, and hard to put down book in the Mike Bowditch series. This is by far one of my favorite series. Who knew I would grow to love books centered around a Maine game warden and those in his life! This is a riveting and brilliant series and if you have not read it, what are you waiting for????? Yes, this is book #14 in the series, but I feel it would work well as a stand-alone. But I highly recommend going back and reading this series from the beginning to get the character development and events leading up to this book.

Maine Game Warden Investigator Mike Bowditch and Stacey Stevens are celebrating their engagement with a party thrown by his stepfather in the beginning of this book. Fans of the series will know their relationship history and appreciate that they have finally decided to get married. But nothing is ever easy for Mike, and at his engagement party he and Stacy witness a hit-and-run boat crash on the lake. When they go out to investigate, they make the grisly discovery of a severed arm. When the warden dive team goes down the next morning, they find two naked bodies under the lake's surface.

Thus begins the investigation that leads Mike, Charlie, Stacy, and others down a dark and dangerous path in hopes of finding a killer. They are up against a highly intelligent killer who will stop at nothing to get away with murder. Woohoo!

I enjoy all the characters and their relationships with others. I especially love the scenes with Mike and Charlie. Mike has had great mentors and Charlie steals every scene he is in!

With the other books in the series, this one has a captivating mystery, and I did my best super sleuthing while reading this and did not come up with whodunit. As always, I was drawn in not only by the mystery in this book but by the descriptions of the lake and surrounding area. This book was well written, atmospheric, tense and well thought out.


I had both the both and the audiobook which made for a completely enjoyable reading and listening experience!

Gripping well thought out, atmospheric and full of tension! I can't wait to read the next book in the series!!!!


#DeadManswake, #PaulDoiron, #Netgalley, #macmillanaudio, #Minotaurbooks, #StMartinsPress

I feel a bit mixed about this book. About halfway, I found out it was part of a series. I think it does okay as a stand-alone but maybe the main character is a bit more developed in the first few books. I felt the protagonist comes off as very bland in this story, but I’m attributing that to me not having read previous books. The story deals with the protagonist solving a mystery, and to me, it felt a bit slow. The last quarter of the book did have me hooked to know how everything would resolve. Once the action was through and the case solved, I felt the ending was very rushed. Again, not sure if that is how the previous stories read, but I’m not a great fan of rushed endings. I give this one ⭐️⭐️⭐️ for that last quarter. I did also listen to this as an audio, and although it was not my favorite, I’m sure the read will work for others!

I had no clue this was 14 in a series when I picked it up. While it absolutely can be read or listened to as a stand alone I did feel like I was missing some backstory on quite a few characters. But that is totally a me issue for not having realized it was in a mystery series.

This is a classic murder mystery book. No romance. no thriller elements, just a classic murder mystery. And a good one at that! I enjoyed the relationship between Mike and his soon to be father in law Charlie, as they are definitely the main characters in the book. The mystery didn't necessarily unfold like I suspected and that is always nice too.

The audiobook narrator does a fantastic job narrating, He has a great voice for the main character. It was a great and easy listen.

I couldn’t get past the narrators over narration and eventually had to stop listening to this one. This is not a reflection of the book - just a personal opinion about the choice of narrator.

3.5 ⭐️

I hadn’t realized that this was the 14th book of a series when I first started reading it. Thankfully this book is a standalone. It did make me want to read all the previous books though.

Mike Bowditch, a Maine Game Warden and his fiancé, Stacy Stevens, are enjoying their engagement party when their hear a collision on the lake. When they check out the accident they see a severed arm. As the sun is coming up, they find two dead naked bodies. One is the man with a severed arm and the other is the man’s mistress. This doesn’t seem like an accident and Mike is determined to figure out what really happened.

I felt like there could’ve been a lot more description but I overall liked the story and will be reading more from this author.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio, St. Martin’s Press and Minotaur Books for my audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

This book is available June 27, 2023.

DEAD MAN'S WAKE by Paul Doiron and narrated by Henry Leyva.

Mike Bowditch is a Maine Game Warden and on the night of his engagement party, a body is discovered. Well, a body part is discovered and it is presumed the rest will follow (and it does). This gruesome find at first seems like a simple boating accident, but Mike sees beyond the surface and it gets dicey. The high profile victim, the biker husband of the 2nd body discovered, and then the bumbling constable who has a questionable past all create a difficult case that Mike is trying to carefully piece together.

I have really enjoyed this detective series. As a game warden, Mike Bowditch is in an aspect of nature about which I like to envision. The scenery plays a part and brings a wildness that fits the building tension in the mystery.

The audio is a fun way to engage this story. Leyva did a good job with the various people, though I didn't love his female voices as much. It didn't distract me from the story, however, so it wasn't a huge deal for me. I am quite impressed with how he captured the intense action in those final chapters!

Speaking of the end, this one packed a punch. The careful piecing together of this story made me glad to have both formats. It was clever enough to make me think I missed something while listening, so it was nice to have the digital format to read and catch those details. That ending was so full of action, I didn't want to miss a beat!

Thank you to @macmillan.audio, @minotaur_books, & @netgalley for the opportunity to listen and read this and share my thoughts! This 14th installment of the series will be available on June 27th.

Book Title: Dead Man’s Wake
Author: Paul Doiron
Narrator: Henry Layva
Series: Mike Bowditch #14
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Pub Date: June 27, 2023
My Rating: 3.5 Rounded up
Pages: 320

This is Book #14 in this series and I have definitely been late to catch the Mike Bowditch, Maine Game Warden train to main! However author, Paul Doiron helps me out with some back story.
BTW: He is from Maine, the former chair of the Maine Humanities Council, Editor Emeritus of Down East: The Magazine of Maine, and a Registered Maine Guide specializing in fly fishing.


The story begins with Mike and his fiancée; Stacy Stevens are visiting Mile’s step-father Neil Turner as he and Jubilee his younger soon-to-be wife are celebrating their engagement with a dinner party. The party is interrupted when they hear the noise of a jet ski and then they hear the sound of a crash on the lake. They find a severed arm which they believe was cut by the blades of the boat motor. After more investigating they find not only the rest of the body, but a dead female.
It appears these two were having an affair and the one of homicide detectives is sure her husband is to blame. However Mike is not as sure that is the case.

This was a nice surprise as it turned out better than expected.
I am actually looking forward to Book #15 and more adventures with Mike and Stacy

Want to thank NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for granting me this early audiobook.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for June 27, 2023.

can not believe I missed that this was the 14th book in this series! I normally try and check to make sure I'm not picking up in the middle of a series, or not too far into an established series, but I have been failing lately! That being said, I don't feel like I was lost with the characters, I felt like the author did a great job with the character descriptions and personalities that it didn't feel like I was coming in to a very well established series. I think if I had started from the beginning of this set then I would understand some of the references a little better or have seen more of a nuanced character growth, but at the end of the day I jumped feet first into a fantastic mystery story.

This book follows Mike Bowditch, a seasoned Maine Game Warden, who witnesses a grisly hit and run boating accident, and everything tailspins from there. Mike's future father-in-law, a retired game warden tends to tag along on Mike's hunt for justice. There is just so much crazy going on that it is super fun to follow the adventures. When one murder turns to two! Well, Mike has his hands full. Mike's family seems to be the jack of all trades. You have the warden, EMT, piolet, etc. Anything he needs seems to fall at his lucky little feet.

Let's talk narration, I absolutely loved the narrator, Henry Leyva. He did such a great job with the regional dialects and bringing out all the emotions and anxiety the characters were feeling. I had to look him up because I swear I have listened to him before, but I've only heard him as part of the ensemble of Daisy Jones and the Six, a fantastic book to listen to on audible. Luckily he narrates this entire series, and I plan to pick up more.

This book a fun mystery full of murder and mayhem with fantastic characters, adorable dogs and some fun twists and turns. The narration is on point and brings this whole fantastically written story to life.

I didn't love the book. I'm not sure why...maybe because I couldn't connect with any of the characters, nor did I really love any of them. I also didn't know that this was book 14 in a series. Maybe if I started from book 1 I would be more invested in the MC.

However, I thought the writing was great. The author did a great job at describing everything! It made me want to go to a lake. I was also honestly surprised by the ending. I must say I didn't see it coming! I thought the narrator did a great job too!

This was a great ride! I love the relationship Mike has w/his future father-in-law. I jumped into this series at the end so I am now adding all the books in this series to my TBR! I can't wait to make it through all the books that came before this one. Then I am going to add ALL of Paul Doiron's backlog of books to my TBR!

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* 3.5, not the first book i have read from this series but i did like this one more than the last from what i recall, not a bad mystery

Great book. It took a bit to get into the groove of the narration simply due to the regional language that is used in the story. Overall a great mystery and suspenseful tale.

I did not know this was a series when I started it. I am willing to say that I might find Mike Bowditch more likable if I understood his backstory, As it stands he comes across as an arrogant asshole who oversteps his bounds and somehow knows more than every other one dimensional law enforcement character written into this book. I have worked my fair share of suicides and homicides and his immediate attitude is something that does not make you many friends at a scene. Early on he gets on people for not taking the proper attitude and remembering that they are dealing with a real deceased person. Compartmentalization is key to survival when dealing with traumatic scenes in real life. Things like gallows humor and emotional distancing are common coping mechanisms. Bowditch is somehow above the basest of these.

The text is really tech heavy when it comes to specific motors and vehicles, to the point it went over my head and simply makes Bowditch sound even more like a know it all. My favorite part is when he got punched in the face. I felt it in my soul. In real life, Bowditch is an unlikable cop with an attitude issue that oversteps his jurisdiction.

This is number 14th in a series from this author and I didn't know that. I still understood the story and the characters easily. It was a police procedural instead of a thriller which I thought it was.

There was an overload of information on boating, which I can appreciate but it was on the heavy side for me. There was a lot of arguing between the investigators which made them all really unlikeable. I felt no attachment to any of the characters and honestly did not care about what happened. The book kept my attention but not enough for it to be memorable.

The unfolding of the mystery and the reveal were good. If you've read this series I'm sure you'll enjoy this new installment. It just wasn't a favorite for me.

✨️Thank you to @netgalley & @stmartinspress, @minotaurbooks, @macmillanaudio for my free ARC & ALC in exchange for an honest review.

On a lake in Maine, a boat runs over a swimmer, and a severed arm is found, along with a naked body. The search continues and a dive team is brought in, and they find another body. Game Warden Investigator Mike Bowditch starts to think this isn’t an accident and is determined to get to the bottom of this case, even if it puts his life in danger.

I started reading this book, after not reading the synopsis, and my attention was quickly grabbed when the narrator said that Mike’s buddy was flying in from the North Maine Woods. Then, Mike commented about a body that was found on Moosehead Lake near Rockwood and Mt. Kineo. I was officially hooked. My dog’s name is Kineo, named after Mr. Kineo and my summers are spent on Moosehead, so this book definitely got my attention. You can tell that the author loves Maine, and why shouldn’t he? It’s beautiful, and the perfect backdrop for this book, which has an interesting cast of characters that are pretty entertaining. My favorite character was Charley, Mike’s father-in-law who reminds me of a lot of an old-time Mainer I know. This book just all around felt like Maine, and I loved that about it!

This is the 14th book in the Mike Bowditch series, but you do not have to read the other books in the series before reading it. It’s a well written, fast-paced Mystery that will leave you wanting to read more of the Mike Bowditch series.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and @NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book!

Thanks to MacMillan Audio & NetGalley for providing an audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Paul Doiron's books do well in my mystery section, so I thought I'd give one a whirl.

This is the latest entry in the Mike Bowditch series. Bowditch is a game warden in Maine who tends to find himself embroiled in murders. This story is no different - he discovers a severed arm in the lake (the same one from On Golden Pond) near to where he's just seen a cigarette-style boat apparently hit something in the water, then sped off. Later, Mike and his fiancée and her father find the rest of the body and then, another corpse, this one female, after determining the first was male and probably the owner of Mouse Island, a small island just big enough to fir a dock and a cottage. Mike more or less inserts himself into the investigation (I have to assume that a game warden wouldn't actually be able to do this in a real murder case) and finds himself with a wealth of suspects, as well as being at odds with Galen Webb, the young and very green Lake Constable.

Doiron clearly researches his subjects well; props to him on that score. I'm the type of person who doesn't really care about the mechanics of boats/guns/pontoon planes, so it's all wasted on me (and a little boring). What we are left with is a completely serviceable story that holds together pretty well. It was a fast listen, enjoyable enough, but not so great that I'll read the next installment.

Henry Leyva does an OK job with narration (his DownEast Maine accent is a LOT), but has troubles with female voices and needs a better producer to explain the pronunciation of "sang froid" (it's not just like it looks, Henry).
2.5 stars rounded up.

Doiron’s writing is addictive and consistently excellent and this is no exception. He skillfully weaves details of game warden Mike Bowditch’s personal life, which readers have come to know and love, with a captivating mystery that will keep readers turning the pages and guessing until the end. The narrator captures Bowditch’s foibles and imperfections perfectly and keeps the story moving at a brisk pace.

After a fantasy and romance binge, I was searching for the perfect mystery read and landed on Dead Man’s Wake. The description had my interest piqued and I jumped in blind and was not disappointed. From the opening chapters of a hit and run boating accident (or murder?) gone wrong, I was invested in finding answers. Game Warden Mike Bowditch is the perfect police procedural main character; curious, thorough, experienced, impartial, and dedicated to justice. His fiancée and future father-in-law’s participation in the case added depth and even some fun to the plot. I was unaware when I requested this read on NetGalley it was part of a lengthy series, but I now clearly understand how Bowditch could carry such a long running and popular series! If you love detective murder mysteries with shocking twists, a real threat of danger, and a buttoned up ending, add this read to your summer TBR! The audiobook narrator did a phenomenal job on all of the nuanced accents for the variety of characters and his performance added suspense and action to the listening experience.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio for this ALC in exchange for an honest review.

Dead Man’s Wake is the 14th book in the Game Warden Mike Bowditch series. This is another crime thriller series with a different investigator point of view that is unique to the crime fiction genre.

While a series, these books can be read as a standalone. I like how the Game Warden perspective of investigating boat crashes is used in the current investigation storyline. Mike and his fiancé, Stacey, find themselves in a killer’s line of sight with h this investigation.

I recommend checking out this audiobook especially if you enjoy crime thrillers from a different investigational perspective.

Thank you @macmillan.audio @minotaur_books and @netgalley for allowing me to listen to this audiobook ahead of publication in exchange for my honest review.