Over his 30 years as a wildlife protection officer for the California Department of Fish and Game, Steve Callan and his working partner, Dave Szody, conducted some of the most fascinating, complex and highly successful wildlife investigations in California history. They also collected a wealth of true stories--action-packed, suspenseful and often humorous.
A half century of adventures and investigations from the early 1950s into the 21st century featuring California wildlife officers: the author's father, his colleagues, and himself.
Desperate and alone, game warden Mike Bowditch strikes up an uneasy alliance with a retired warden pilot, and together the two men journey deep into the Maine wilderness in search of a runaway fugitive--Mike's father. But the only way for Mike to save his father is to find the real killer--which could mean putting everyone he loves in the line of fire.
In mid-December 1956, veteran Northern California game warden Norman Bettis confronts a gang of commercial duck poachers and disappears-patrol car and all. Thirteen years later, rookie game warden Henry Glance sets out to solve the mystery of his disappearance.
Maine game warden Mike Bowditch finds himself in a life-or-death chase in this next thriller in the bestselling series by Edgar Award nominee Paul Doiron, Dead by Dawn. Mike Bowditch is fighting for his life. After being ambushed on a dark winter road, Bowditch crashes his Jeep into a frozen river. Trapped beneath the ice in the middle of nowhere, having lost his gun and any way to signal for help, Mike fights his way to the surface. But surviving the crash is only the first challenge. Whoever set the trap that ran him off the road is still out there, and they’re coming for him. Hours earlier, Mike had been called to investigate the suspicious drowning of a wealthy professor. Despite the death being ruled an accident, the victim's elegant, eccentric daughter-in-law insists the man was murdered. She suspects his companion that day, a reclusive survivalist and conspiracy theorist who accompanied the professor on his fateful duck-hunting trip—but what exactly was the nature of their relationship? And was her own sharp-tongued daughter, who inherited the dead man’s fortune, as close to her grandfather as she claims? The accusations lead Mike to a sinister local family who claim to have information on the crime. But when his Jeep flies into the river and unknown armed assailants on snowmobiles chase him through the wilderness, the investigation turns into a fight for survival. As Mike faces a nightlong battle to stay alive, he must dissect the hours leading up to the ambush and solve two riddles: which one of these people desperately want him dead, and what has he done to incur their wrath?
In Paul Doiron's riveting follow-up to his Edgar Award–nominated novel, The Poacher's Son, Maine game warden Mike Bowditch's quest to find a missing woman leads him through a forest of lies in search of a killer who may have gotten away with murder once before. While on patrol one foggy March evening, Bowditch receives a call for help. A woman has reportedly struck a deer on a lonely coast road. When the game warden arrives on the scene, he finds blood in the road—but both the driver and the deer have vanished. And the state trooper assigned to the accident appears strangely unconcerned. The details of the disappearance seem eerily familiar. Seven years earlier, a jury convicted lobsterman Erland Jefferts of the rape and murder of a wealthy college student and sentenced him to life in prison. For all but his most fanatical defenders, justice was served. But when the missing woman is found brutalized in a manner that suggests Jefferts may have been framed, Bowditch receives an ominous warning from state prosecutors to stop asking questions. For Bowditch, whose own life was recently shattered by a horrific act of violence, doing nothing is not an option. His clandestine investigation reopens old wounds between Maine locals and rich summer residents and puts both his own life and that of the woman he loves in jeopardy. As he closes in on his quarry, he suddenly discovers how dangerous his opponents are, and how far they will go to prevent him from bringing a killer to justice.
In "Wildlife Wars," Terry Grosz serves up fascinating stories-alternately hair-raising, hilarious, and heart-wrenching-from his 30-year struggle to protect wildlife in America. A natural storyteller, Grosz writes about the remarkable characters he met-on both sides of the law-as he matched wits with elk poachers, salmon snaggers, commercial-market duck hunters, and a host of other law-breakers. Best of all, though, these stories are so remarkably entertaining you won't want to put them down. Wildlife Wars is the winner of the 2000 National Outdoor Book Award, Nature and the Environment Category.
From the first game wardens in the Everglades to present-day wildlife officers, law enforcement in the wild, untamed Everglades has kept pace with changing times. Today's game wardens chase escaped convicts, keep surveillance on drug runners, and recover wreckage from plane crashes as well as arrest deer, turkey, and alligator poachers. Meet the men and women who have dedicated their lives to protecting the wildlife and natural resources in the only Everglades on earth. For anyone interested in law enforcement or the Everglades.
The disappearance of Mike Bowditch’s beloved mentor reveals an ominous connection to a 15-year-old cold case in One Last Lie, the new thriller from bestselling Edgar Award finalist Paul Doiron. “Never trust a man without secrets.” These are the last words retired game warden Charley Stevens speaks to his surrogate son, Warden Investigator Mike Bowditch, before the old man vanishes without explanation. Mike suspects his friend’s mysterious departure has to do with an antique warden badge that recently resurfaced at a flea market — a badge connected to a cold case from Charley’s past that the Maine Warden Service would rather forget. Fifteen years ago, a young warden was sent on an undercover mission to infiltrate a notorious poaching ring and never returned. He was presumed dead, but his body was never recovered. Mike is desperate to find Charley before he meets a similar fate. His investigation brings him to the miles of forest and riverside towns along the Canadian border—but he soon learns that even his fellow wardens have secrets to keep. And Charley’s past isn’t the only one coming to light; his daughter, Stacey, has resurfaced to search for her missing father, and Mike must grapple with the return of the woman he once thought was gone forever. Forced to question his faith in the man he sees as a father, Mike must reopen a cold case that powerful people—one of whom may be a killer—will do anything to keep closed.
Bestselling author and Edgar-Award finalist Paul Doiron knows Maine better than just about anyone, and in this series that follows Maine game warden Mike Bowditch, he proves it. Here together for the first time in one thrill-ride collection are the first three books in the critically acclaimed series: The Poacher's Son Set in the wilds of Maine, this is an explosive tale of an estranged son thrust into the hunt for a murderous fugitive-his own father. Trespasser On a fog shrouded road in Maine, a young woman disappears after hitting a deer with her car. When Bowditch is called to investigate, he uncovers a web of lies and deceit that leads to a killer who may have already gotten away with murder. Bad Little Falls Doiron delivers another "masterpiece of high-octane narrative" (Booklist) in this harrowing thriller about the hunt for a murderer at the height of a major snowstorm.
