PORTLAND, Maine — One of the talents every good writer should possess is the ability to write a lead sentence that grabs readers by the lapels and pulls them right into the story. Paul Doiron has that gift.
Here’s the first line in his latest book: “I passed the coroner’s meat wagon on my way up the hill to the prison.” Make you want to keep reading? It sure did for me.
Doiron’s new novel, “Almost Midnight,” is the tenth in a series set in Maine featuring Mike Bowditch, now an investigator with the Maine Warden Service. “It’s totally incomprehensible to me that I’ve written ten books in ten years,” Doiron says. “But it’s highly motivating when you have a deadline every year—and a check waiting.”
Fans will be happy to know that Doiron, who grew up in Scarborough and used to be editor of “Down East” magazine, has already begun writing the eleventh book in the Bowditch series. “I’ll go home tonight and probably put in a few more hours [on it],” he told me. That’s what you have to do when there’s a paycheck waiting.