Unlike the previous Mike Bowditch, game warden series, this book focuses on a particular moral dilemma. A couple of teens are attending an elite ski boarding school near the Widow-maker Ski Resort in central Maine. The girl, about a year younger, is from a wealthy connected family and is clearly being groomed to be a champion. The boy, a scholarship kid, has a more uncertain future, but he is putting his best effort into it. But things don’t go well, and the boy, who has just turned eighteen, finds himself charged with statutory rape, sent to work camp, and forced to register as a sex offender. As a former high school teacher, I find this appalling, and yet I am sure that this issue will actually play out this way in cases where there is malignant intent.
Well, be that as it may, Bowditch is asked to help track down the young man by his mother, who may not appear who she claims to be. Then of course there is the matter of the part-wolf dog, and laws governing what can be done with such an animal, based on the percentage of wolf DNA in its blood. Unfortunately for Shadow, in his case, it comes in pretty high. But of course, Mike is already smitten.
There are chases on the deadly snowy slopes of the Widow-maker, clandestine groups of men in the wilderness, and many a grey area decision for Mike. Also his girlfriend seems to be on the way of peaceing herself out. But of course Doiron’s excellent writing keeps one on one’s toes.
