Review: "Skin and Bones," Paul Doiron

Charley Stevens as a young Maine game warden, tracking down a mysterious hermit. His wife, Ora, driving to a remote homestead to help a woman in peril. Shadow, the wolf-hybrid, helping out on a case. And Warden Mike Bowditch investigating the bizarre appearance of rattlesnakes in Maine—as described by a third-person narrator.

Skin and Bones, an absorbing collection of short stories by Paul Doiron (and the title of one of those stories), is a kind of through-the-looking glass trip. It has the comfortable familiarity of the novels in Doiron's popular mystery series featuring Bowditch, but it’s served up with a twist.

The tales add the backstories of characters readers have come to know, and fills in some spaces between the novels. The final story, Sheep’s Clothing, picks up where 2024’s Pitch Dark left off. It doesn’t significantly advance Bowditch’s life except in one important way, which I won’t reveal here.

Several of the stories feature Charley, Bowditch’s crusty, fearless mentor—in his salad days. His daughter Stacy, who eventually marries the younger warden, is a kid. Charley’s wife, Ora, has yet to be seriously injured in a plane accident. In Skin and Bones, Charley is approached by Mike’s father, Jack, who was a poacher and all around bad ‘un. In this story, however, Jack has found a dead bald eagle, is outraged, and wants Charley’s help in finding who killed it.

Bowditch is the protagonist in other stories, at various stages in his career. He’s working in the Sebago Lake region when he gets a report there’s a rattlesnake on the loose. As every Mainer knows, there are no deadly snakes in Maine…but then a young man is attacked by a rattler and may lose a leg. When Mike gets to the scene, he meets up with a memorable character from one of the novels (Knife Creek?)— Ricky Elwell, the young diamonds-in-the rough taxidermist and butcher who, it turns out, knows a lot about snakes. Though the novels are told by Bowditch, this story is told by a third-person narrator, which provides an interesting perspective on the sometimes reckless warden.

All the stories have the same strong sense of place as the novels; Doiron is adept at painting the varied landscape  of Maine. There are general stores, rough shacks at the end of dirt roads, rich people from away, snowmobiles, lakes and mountains. Doiron’s use of real locations—Grand Lake Stream, Lake St. George—always adds richness to his fiction.

I thoroughly enjoyed what felt like an inside look at some of my favorite characters in mystery fiction. And though I live right here in Maine, it really is a great place to visit. Despite all the murders.

Skin and Bones will be published in May; I read an advance copy through the NetGalley program.

Essay: Chilled!

If you live in an old and drafty house, it may take you awhile to realize the furnace isn’t working.

I was feeling a bit chilled at around 9:30 on a recent Wednesday morning, but that wasn’t unusual. It’s winter in Maine. But I checked the thermostat to see if I was justified in cranking it up. I was surprised to see that although it was set at 70 it was only registering 64 degrees.

I reported this fact to my husband, Paul. “The two don’t always match,” he said.

“Six degrees?”

He came to take a look. “Hmmm.”

What was happening? The furnace was on. We went over to the nearest vent. Bent over. It was blowing, all right—cold air.

Paul called our fuel provider. They put us on a list.

I went off to exercise on the indoor cycle, which, I figured, would keep me warm. Paul went out with the dog. As I finished up my ride, I heard a knock at the door. It was two people from the fuel company. Wow, that was fast, I thought.

“We just filled your tank,” one said. “It was empty. Is your furnace off?”

I stared at him. What? In the 30-plus years we’ve lived  in the house, we’ve never run out of oil. The company just comes and fills it up before it’s depleted. I told the delivery guy we had a service call in, but he said he could take a look at the furnace and reset it.

Oh, joy! I couldn’t believe our problem was going to be resolved this easily.

I was miffed that we were having a problem at all. In Late last year, we’d had an extended “checkup” of the furnace that resulted in the addition of a “draft induction” unit. (Don’t ask.) Both operations took hours on separate days and cost quite a chunk of change.

After all that, I figured the furnace should be trouble-free for a few years.

But if the fuel had run out…well, that was another matter to address.

The duo went downstairs and came back a few minutes later. The reset hadn’t worked.

Back to square one.

While we waited for the technician to arrive, Paul set up a space heater in between the living and dining rooms. It was a sunny day, so our tall, south facing windows were keeping things relatively comfortable. We ate our lunch. I was remaining calm and practicing non-resistance. I was letting the universe do its work.

Finally a cheerful young man arrived, confident he was going to get us up and going within minutes.

He was wrong.

We could hear him making several calls to HQ. He went out to his truck several times. I was feeling less Zen by the minute. Then he gave us the somber news that he had tried to replace a part in the furnace twice, and had blown both replacements. But he was not giving up!

By now it was time for Paul to take Will on another walk. This was fortuitous, because I had kept sending Paul to the cellar to check on the tech’s progress. Now, on his own, the tech had time to ponder the situation and he figured out what the problem was. It had something to do with the empty oil tank failing to set off an alarm, shorting a circuit.

The solution, however, was back at HQ.

He set off to get the needed part. I decided I needed coffee, so I fired up the Keurig. This shorted the circuit that the space heater was on. Paul reset it. I made my coffee. Then I noticed that the WiFi router—also on the heater/Keurig circuit—was off. I looked at the Bose radio. The clock numbers were blinking. I said, “We did it again!”

The whole house is falling apart, a voice inside my head shrieked.

I wasn’t even trying to be calm at this point.

Back to the cellar Paul went, but the heater/Keurig/router circuit was fine. One of us had dislodged a power strip while unplugging the space heater. And I had not reset the Bose after the actual outage. Of course, if we had blown a circuit again, there would have been no numbers blinking.

The house was not falling apart. The Internet was restored. After resetting the clock, I went back to sitting in my chair with a blanket and my hard-earned coffee.

The tech returned quickly with the part he needed and got the furnace going again. He was quite proud of himself. I could see he took pride in his work, and that made me happy—although not as pleased as I was about the heat being back on.

The furnace hummed merrily along, and soon we were up to a comfortable 70 degrees. Then Paul lit a fire in the woodstove, so we turned the thermostat down to 66. It wouldn’t go on again until we were in bed for the night, around 8:45 p.m. Yup, the furnace goes on at the same time every night, after the woodstove cools down.

Of course, on this night we were on tenterhooks. Would the furnace go on as usual? I lay awake, waiting, thinking of all the times I’d cursed its roar in the night as it woke me from a sound sleep. Never again, I vowed.

The furnace came on. Paul and I cheered. But wait—I hopped out of bed and stood over the hot-air vent to make sure.

Ah, yes, heat. Wonderful heat. If you live in an old and drafty house, you don’t want to live without it. 

__________

 I welcome email at lizzie621@icloud.com

Essay: Wired!

My first reaction was “Grrr.” GWI, our internet service provider, was notifiying my husband, Paul, and me that they were disconnecting all DSL customers as of March 31.

I don’t like change. I especially dislike tech change.

I don’t like disruption is my little world.

Deep breath. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been thinking about an upgrade. Our service seemed slow and once a week our router would go off and we’d have to reset it. Since the apparatus was elderly, I was never sure whether it was a problem on our end or GWI’s. Still.

Of course, I did not pursue a change in service because I dreaded the idea of change.

It was good that I was being propelled—forced—into a new era, I told myself.

But, the major reason for my aversion to change is that I am a master catastrophizer. Suppose we could not get another supplier?

I always worry when we have to have anything installed in our Victorian house. It was not built for the 21st century. Appliances, for example, have to be small because our doorways are narrow. When we went to buy a new dryer a year or so ago, there was only one that fit the bill.

Maybe there was something in this old house that precluded a high-speed fiber connection. Is that why we had DSL, a service delivered over the phone lines? I thought about how. even in our new addition, if we try to run the vacuum while the space heater is on, the circuit shorts.

Deep breath.

I could see I had no idea what a new service involved. So I did some research. First, I determined that we had DSL because GWI did not offer fiber in our area, not because the house was built in the 1870s. Then I read up on fiber installation, which seemed to be akin to a cable TV setup, which we had for years.

There would be no problem drilling a small hole in the 19th century clapboards.

Of course, when I woke up that night at 2 a.m., devilish thoughts hounded me. Worst case scenario: No Wi-Fi! We could live without it. But did I want to? Internet access isn’t just about surfing the web anymore. We stream everything we watch, for one thing. I do daily language lessons on Duolingo, and use the Calm app as a sleep and meditation aid. So much daily business has to be conducted online—submitting forms, checking account balances, etc. I listen to music through a smart speaker, download photos …

I realize I could do all this on my phone, and sometimes do. It would be possible for some people to exist with just their data plan. But I much prefer to use my iPad with attached keyboard. It has a decent-sized screen and I don’t have to hunt and peck. Plus, Paul has no data plan on his phone and uses his MacBook for everything.

We would not enjoy watching programs together on my phone.

No. We needed Wi-Fi.

The next day, though, I started thinking about how reliant we have become on that connection. I don’t spend a lot of time with my phone, and only indulge in scrolling once in a while. I read physical books and magazines and write in a journal. I like to do jigsaw puzzles and crosswords and spend a lot of time gardening when the weather is good. It’s not like I can’t occupy myself away from my screens. Yet …

I find this reliance both annoying and disturbing, but perhaps not enough to do anything about it.

Finally, installation day arrived. I had a last-minute panic attack when a prep email mentioned the need for an outlet next to the electrical box. Our cellar has exactly one outlet (aside from those for the washer and dryer) and it is some distance from the box. I had to lecture myself that we couldn’t possibly be the only old house in Augusta without an appropriate outlet. I handed the problem over to the universe.

And, voila, the installation went smoothly. I was not convinced it was really going to happen until the technician brought the cable down from the utility line. I figured, at that point, there was no going back. There wasn’t. He never even went near the cellar.

Did I learn a lesson about worrying from all this? Oh, probably not.

I think I did strengthen my resolve to hand off problems to the universe. At 10 that night, I woke up and realized the electricity was off. My analog clock had stopped at 9:30. A quick check of the Central Maine Power app showed that more than 200 people in Augusta were in the dark and that service should be restored by 11:45.

If so, our refrigerated food would be safe, and that was my main concern. I told the universe it was in her hands, closed my eyes, and breathed. Losing electricity was worse than going without Wi-Fi, I decided, as I drew the covers closer. Especially in January.

The furnace went on with a roar at 11:30. Downstairs, the refrigerator purred and the brand-new router blinked.

All was right in my little world. 

__________

 I welcome email at lizzie621@icloud.com

Review: "A Very Woodsy Murder," Ellen Byron

Dee Stern is fed up with her frustrating career as a sitcom writer. She’s striking out for gold—almost literally—in this fun and funny cozy mystery.

Dee and her friend Jeff (who’s also her ex-husband) have bought the Golden Motel in the tiny town of Foundgold. The Golden is a rundown assortment of cottages in the foothills of the the Sierra Nevada. It needs a lot of work, but the place has potential.

It’s directly next to the Majestic National Park, as well as the kitschy tourist town of Goldsgone. Yes, after the wannabe miners ran out of luck—and precious metals—in Foundgold, they headed next door. And seemingly never left. In Goldsgone’s quaint downtown, the Victorian buildings are lovingly maintained, the merchants dress in gingham and the smell of sarsaparilla seems to be everywhere.

Dee hopes to cash in on the “forty-niners” vibe, but she and Jeff soon find out that their new home is not as idyllic as it appeared. Michael Adam Baker shows up as their first paying guest. He’s an annoying former colleague of Dee’s. She suspects he’s up to no good, especially when she finds him snooping in her apartment. Then he turns up dead—with half his body on motel property, half on national park land.

This means both the local sheriff and a park ranger—who don’t get along—are on the case. Of course, Dee and Jeff also have to get in on the sleuthing—they are losing business as the “murder’ motel.

There’s no lack of suspects. Michael Adam Baker was a local boy, and he had burned a lot of bridges before he hit the road for LA.

An entertaining cast of characters populate the two towns, including Elmira, proprietor of the All-in-One General Store. Her home-baked goodies are, unfortunately, disgusting. Serena Finlay-Katz is married to a powerful Hollywood agent. No one can predict who will be in Serena’s baby sling and who in the stroller—baby Emmy or her Morkie dog, Oscar. Serena creates charcuterie boards and turns up with them on all occasions.

There’s also Ma’am and Mister Ma’am, who live in the woods and show up any time a charcuterie board does; Verity Donner Gillespie (descendent of those Donners and proud of it); and Dee’s dad, Sam, a voice actor who can’t help but converse with his daughter in the voice of “Colonel Cluck” and other favorite characters.

There’s a second murder, a fire in one of the cottages, and Dee is attacked. It’s clear that someone wants Dee and Jeff gone. They are undeterred, even as bookings are cancelled and it looks like they have made a big mistake in buying the Golden.

I thoroughly enjoyed A Very Woodsy Murder. Dee and Jeff are likeable protagonists, and the fact that Dee has adopted the prior owner’s old dog, Nugget, is a bonus. The writing is witty, the action nonstop and the vintage motel concept interesting. This appears to be the first in a series—I’m already looking forward to the next installment.