Snail-Paced Procedural About Hunting Incident on Maquoit Island
STAY HIDDEN: A NOVEL (MIKE BOWDITCH MYSTERIES is the 9th series novel, but my first.  It works okay as a standalone, but I felt like I was missing something important because it never explains anything about Mike’s estrangement from the daughter of his father-figure/mentor (Charlie).  The novel is a snail-paced police procedural (game warden investigator procedural, to be more precise).<br /><br />In the novel, newly minted warden investigator Mike is assigned his first case--the fatal shooting of a woman who was hanging white laundry on a clothesline on isolated Maquoit Island, which is located off the coast of Maine.  The first reports suggest that a hunter mistook the white fabric of her laundry for a white-tailed deer.<br /><br />However, forensic details at the incident scene, and the general secretiveness of the island residents (especially the secretiveness of take-charge-guy Harmon Reed) make Mike suspicious about the “hunting accident”.  His further interviews and investigations prove out his suspicion that it was murder.  Mike successfully identifies the killer, but nearly loses his own life in the process.<br /><br />If I liked the Mike Bowditch character enough to want to read further series novels, I would definitely start with the first one, [[ASIN:1250161657  The Poacher’s Son]].  I’m sure that it’s more interesting than this one, which has a predictable plot and is best described as tedious.  The Maquoit Island setting rings true, and I hope that the islanders will deal with the deer/tick problem soon (if it really exists).  Series followers will probably want to read this for the information about Mike’s ongoing relationship with Charlie.