Trespasser

In Doiron's compelling sequel to his debut, The Poacher's Son, troubled 25-year-old Mike Bowditch, a Maine game warden, is still coming to grips with the realization that his estranged father%E2%80%94now deceased%E2%80%94has become known as the state's most notorious murderer. Bowditch finds solace in his job, but when he investigates a car accident involving a deer on a remote stretch of road, the driver, 23-year-old Ashley Kim, from Cambridge, Mass., has disappeared. Later, in an empty house, he finds Kim's naked body, bound with sailor's rigging tape, with the word slut carved into her chest. As Bowditch becomes increasingly obsessed with finding the killer, he puts his already tenuous career in jeopardy as well as his equally tenuous relationship with his possibly pregnant girlfriend. Doiron complements this thriller's decidedly dark tone with introspective existential and spiritual musings and atmospheric imagery (houses in a fishing village "clung like barnacles" around a harbor). 15-city author tour. (June)