The Caretaker

Mike Bowditch #16
The Caretaker (2021)

Shop this book on Amazon Go

The Caretaker is a Mike Bowditch short story rather than a full-length novel, and its premise begins with a classic intrusion setup. The new owners of a dream cottage on a remote Maine lake find themselves first taunted and then threatened by an unknown prowler who seems determined to turn their retreat into a nightmare. When local authorities refuse to get involved, they turn to retired game warden Charley Stevens and his young protégé Mike Bowditch for help.

What gives the story its pull is the way Paul Doiron turns a seemingly straightforward protection job into something more layered and uneasy. Charley soon begins to suspect that the couple may not be telling the whole truth, which shifts the suspense away from a simple who-is-the-prowler question and toward a more deceptive, pressure-filled mystery. The remote lake setting gives the story the same Maine atmosphere that defines the main series, but in a tighter, more compact form suited to a short work.

As a series interlude, The Caretaker works best as a character-rich side story that uses Mike and Charley together while leaning into a slightly more old-fashioned mystery structure. Doiron has described it as his twist on a Sherlock Holmes story, and he has also clarified that works like The Caretaker are short stories, later collected in Skin and Bones and Other Mike Bowditch Short Stories, not standalone full novels.