Hatchet Island

Mike Bowditch #19
Hatchet Island (2022)

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Hatchet Island begins when Maine warden investigator Mike Bowditch travels with his girlfriend, Stacey Stevens, to a seabird sanctuary off the coast of Maine to check on a researcher who has gone missing. What starts as a welfare visit quickly turns into something far more ominous when gunfire breaks the silence and, by morning, two of the three researchers on the island are dead while the third has vanished. The investigation then pulls Mike toward another nearby island owned by a celebrated photographer and his wife, where the case grows stranger and more dangerous.

What makes the premise especially strong is the shift from the inland wilderness usually associated with Mike Bowditch to a harsh, isolated coastal setting. Paul Doiron uses the windswept islands, limited access, and uneasy small-circle atmosphere to create a more enclosed kind of suspense, where distance from the mainland makes every discovery feel riskier. Hatchet Island keeps the series’ investigative core but gives it a more maritime edge, mixing murder, disappearance, and local secrecy into a tightly pressurized mystery.