Minotaur
Published June 30, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
Mike Bowditch is in trouble. Again. The Maine game warden may be a brilliant investigator, but he has a habit of crossing boundaries without seeking permission, and now he’s awaiting a disciplinary hearing to see if he can get his job back. Not that being sidelined will stop him. This time, he has stumbled onto a house fire. A woman is standing outside the engulfed home, holding a baby the homeowner handed her before rushing back into the burning building to save his wife. Mike tries to go after him, but is only able to reach a blazing corpse. It turns out the couple were widely despised, having been accused of murdering a child. Was it an accidental fire, as authorities suspect, or was someone seeking revenge? Mike has his suspicions, which deepen when he tries to speak to the woman bystander, who runs away from him in a panic. And it’s just the start. Someone has been following his wife in a white van, he’s getting strange calls from spoofed phone numbers, and another man accused of a vile crime has been laid down unconscious on train tracks to be crushed by an engine. Someone is carrying out vigilante justice, and is determined to draw Mike into his web.
While novels that delve into relationships are frequently called “women’s fiction,” there is no genre designation for books like this, which could be called “men’s fiction.” It’s not that relationships are omitted; Mike and his wife are expecting a child any minute now, and that addition to the family plays a role in both the plot and in developing Mike’s character. He is thoughtful about the people he loves, and even about the antagonists he faces, who he tries to understand as flawed human beings influenced by their circumstances. But action is the driving force of this thrilling story, and our hero can’t stop throwing himself into danger in order to get to the bottom of things. It probably helps that his wife seems entirely supportive of his choices, and is herself a badass opponent, though she gets less page time given she is landed with most of the domestic duties.
All that said, there’s much to be said for this version of men’s fiction. Doiron writes compellingly about the natural world, and when it comes to the outdoors, he knows his stuff. The action sequences, which include an epic struggle aboard a boat, are enhanced by realistic details that are based on knowledge of the woods and coastlines of Maine. His plot never lets up the pace and his characters, particularly the villains of this story, are memorable, balancing almost mythic evil (one of them is monstrous, swollen with steroids, and capable of feats of endurance and strength) with enough backstory to provide them with touches of humanity and even pathos.
As the sixteenth book in the series comes to a conclusion, there’s no sign that it is wearing out or coasting to an end. Return readers will find this entry thrilling; those new to the series will have no difficulty entering this rough and tumble world of outdoors adventure.