PORTLAND, Maine — Anyone who’s ever taken a trip out to a bird sanctuary on one of Maine’s islands has probably been thrilled and fascinated by the light, the landscape, the wind and waves, and of course, the myriad birds that either live on those islands or use them as migratory way stations.
Paul Doiron had a somewhat different reaction.
“A number of years ago, my wife and I visited one of these islands through Maine Audubon,” he says. “When we got there, we were greeted by three young, female interns.”
As the author of thirteen crime novels featuring Maine game warden investigator Mike Bowditch, Doiron immediately felt the wheels in his head start to turn.
“[The interns] were saying, ‘Oh, the local lobstermen are so nice. They’re here every day bringing us ice cream and lobsters.’ And of course my murderous imagination is thinking: 'They’re so exposed — anything could happen.'”
“Hatchet Island,” Doiron’s latest novel, takes place on an island with a seabird sanctuary, and it’s apparent that he knows the territory. He ought to, because when he met the woman who would later become his wife, she said to him, “If you want to date me, you better take up birding.”
He did, and they’ve been married for 25 years. “I can say without reservation,” he writes, “that was one of the best decisions I ever made.”