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There's a familiar Maine joke — hell, it's probably a joke everywhere — about a tourist coming upon an old timer in a backwoods cabin and asking him disdainfully, "Have you lived in this place your whole life?" And the old timer answers, "Not yet."

That's sort of how I feel about writing. The most common question I get asked at readings is, "How long did it take to write the book?" I've never understood why the matter is of such widespread interest. Maybe it's because writing a novel seems like such a colossal undertaking (which it can be).

In any case, the answer I always give for The Poacher's Son is "about five to six years." With Trespasser the answer is "about two and a half years." And for my next book it will be even less.

But the truth is, it's taken me a lifetime to write these novels. A lifetime of growing up, making mistakes, learning my craft. And like the old ...

My new novel Trespasser opens with a woman hitting a deer on a foggy Maine road. She's alone in a remote and unfamiliar place. What is she supposed to do?

It's an increasingly common (and scary) occurrence. Over the past 10 years, Maine has averaged more than 3,000 deer-vehicle crashes each year.

In one of my favorite natural history books, Heart and Blood: Living with Deer in America, Richard Nelson writes:

Few events in the history of North American wildlife have been so remakable, so unexpected, and so provocative of conflict as the rise of the suburban deer. In some places, as city waistlines spread into the countryside, deer have held their own instead of fleeing to rural lands that are already overcrowded with their own kind. And in other places, deer from the outlands have gradually colonized our neighborhoods, their trails weaving like veins of wilderness through the geometry of backyards, greenways, and roads.

From 1997 to 2007 a wildlife management district along the southern Maine coast had an ...

In my new book, Trespasser, I observe that the most famous game warden in history is Robin Hood's arch foe, the Big Cheese of Nottingham. I think that says a lot about the relative obscurity of the profession of conservation law enforcement officer. It also frames the unique challenge of writing crime novels for a modern audience about a job that seemingly had its heyday during the time of Friar Tuck.

The profession of game warden has changed considerably since the reign of John Lackland. Medieval wardens were basically armored thugs whose job was to punish any knave or varlet caught poaching the king's deer. Protecting natural resources for future generations was not foremost in their minds (unless it was for future generations of Plantagenets).

Modern game wardens, by contrast, are dedicated professionals who risk their lives to stop elephant poachers, break up smuggling rings that trade in endangered birds and snakes (or even, more weirdly, in animal parts related to erectile dysfunction), and generally protect the well-being of people in remote and dangerous parts of ...

Here's the thing about being struck by lightning: It feels exactly like you'd expect it to feel. Your brain sizzles. Your heart tries to burst through your chest like the xenomorph from Alien , and every muscle in your body does a simultaneous full-flex. Even the hair on your head rises. I know because it happened to me.

People use the term "being struck by lightning" as a metaphor all the time. It suggests a nearly impossible occurrence or some other life-changing event. That's what it was for me — both as a writer and a man. That near-death experience served as the starting point for both my writing career and my lifelong fascination with Maine game wardens. I never would have written The Poacher's Son or Trespasser, in other words, if I hadn't nearly been fried.

On Memorial Day weekend 23 years ago I went camping with two friends in the mountains of western Maine. I slept horribly on the first night of the expedition, nightmares all night long. So before going to sleep on ...

The first thing you should probably know about me, assuming you haven't yet read my crime novels, The Poacher's Son and Trespasser, is that I am from Maine.

I went to high school in Portland — the other one. It might not be widely known out west, but Mainers nurture a keen resentment toward your beautiful city — which was named after ours by the turncoat Mainer Francis W. Pettygrove — because you have outstripped us in almost every conceivable way. Any time we travel outside New England, we must explain that, no, we come from the smaller, eastern Portland — the one with the lobsters.

This distinction is an area of special interest to me. In my day job, when I am not writing my novels, I am the editor in chief of Down East: The Magazine of Maine. The magazine was founded in 1954, which makes us roughly the same age as Playboy, but none of our attractions are airbrushed or enhanced with silicone. In the jargon of the magazine trade, Down East is what's called a "regional" publication, meaning we are devoted ...