For a Maine novelist, learning about underwater crime investigation is all in a day’s work | CPT PPP Coverage

PORTLAND, Maine — In the opening pages of “Dead Man’s Wake,” the new thriller from Paul Doiron, Maine Game Warden Investigator Mike Bowditch hears a collision on a lake between a speed boat and a jet ski. 

Even though he writes fiction, Doiron is a stickler for accuracy, and to get the details right about the crash and its aftermath, he hunted down and read some decidedly obscure reference works. One was a book called “Boat Accident Reconstruction and Litigation,” and another was “The Water’s Edge: A Manual for the Underwater Criminal Investigator.”

“That one was a page-turner,” Doiron said of the latter book. “I learned a lot about that very arcane branch of forensic investigation.”

“Dead Man’s Wake” is the fourteenth book in the Mike Bowditch series. A new one comes out every summer, a clockwork schedule made possible by Doiron’s discipline and the pleasure he gets from his craft. As a registered Maine guide, he is not shy about taking the things he loves in real life—boating, hiking, fishing—and weaving them into his novels.

“This is fun for me,” he said of writing. “I’m constantly in the outdoors and I’m constantly finding new stories and meeting Mainers. I love the authenticity of Maine people. It’s just so easy—it’s my life now.”

What’s especially gratifying is showing Maine to people who’ve never been here. Those folks sometimes write to say that, after reading Doiron’s work, they want to visit the state. But there’s a sentiment that’s often tacked on. “I just hope,” they tell him, “… it’s not quite as dangerous as it is in your books.”

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