The Precipice

Doiron brings his gift for making the Maine woods live and breathe to a taut whodunit in his stellar sixth novel featuring game warden Mike Bowditch (after 2014’s The Bone Orchard). Bowditch is pulled away from a romantic weekend with his biologist girlfriend, Stacey Stevens, when word reaches the authorities that two young women have disappeared while hiking the Appalachian Trail’s daunting Hundred Mile Wilderness. Samantha Boggs and Missy Montgomery, recent graduates of Pentecost University, a Christian school in the South, failed to check in with their parents in Georgia three days earlier, triggering a massive manhunt. Bowditch is teamed with an unusual volunteer, Bob Nissen (known as Nonstop for his record pace hiking the entire trail), and is soon able to narrow the parameters of the search. Bowditch identifies the women’s “point last seen” via a logbook entry that contains an ominous reference to coyotes. Multidimensional characters and a high level of suspense help make this a winner. Agent: Ann Rittenberg, Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency. (June)