One Last Lie is the eleventh in the Mike Bowditch series by Paul Doiron. Mike is a Maine game warden but this book starts in Florida where Mike has been sent to perform his due diligence on the background for a new chief pilot for the Maine Warden Service. Mike’s friend, Charley Stevens, told him, “Never trust a man without secrets.” This is one of Doiron’s promises to the reader. He promises that he will tell us what the lie in the title means. He promises that he will tell us why Mike is in Florida and not Maine, and who the person might be that doesn’t have secrets. That’s a lot of promises before the reader makes it through the first paragraph.
Doiron is a solid storyteller and his books are a pleasure to read, and Mike is a wonderfully imperfect protagonist. Doiron follows through on those early promises and makes and answers a bunch more along the way. This story is a treasure quest that begins with a python hunt in the swamps of Florida, proceeds to a flea market in Machias, Maine, and then a plunge into the woods and a northern trek to the border with Canada. Mike seeks to find his friend and mentor who has mysteriously professed to disappearing forever, leaving a note which in itself is mysterious. Why leave a note if you want to disappear forever and not have anyone try to find you?
There are some great lines like, “Florida is the world capital of unintended consequences”. And “My love for the old man was close to unconditional. But this day signaled the end of my apprenticeship. I had no doubt that Charley Stevens would continue to teach me life lessons, but only small boys and fools worship other men. The point of life is to find heroism in yourself.”
There are some great action scenes like in the Florida swamp wrestling with a gigantic python. Doiron puts Mike on an island in a rushing river where there seems to be no way out. Threats all around - to him, to his friend Charley, to a partially innocent bystander with an evil, Dudley Do-right character changing his skin from good guy to villain. Nature plays a role - as it should in the wilds of the Maine woods.
This is not a major Don Quixote fable, but it is a solid backwoods yarn. Mike does have problems with his girlfriends, and it seems that Doiron is undecided about which way to go with that issue. It reminds me of the Lovin’ Spoonful song Did you ever have to make up your mind? Say yes to one and leave the other behind. Mike finally ends the story by lying to himself. And that is the last lie.
