Maine Books: Adult Fiction Set in Maine
The books listed here are set completely or partially in real or imaginary places in
the state of Maine. They're in alphabetical order by author, with links to author entries
on our Maine Writers Index, if applicable (not all
books set in Maine are written by Maine authors, and, we still have entries
to write on many more Maine writers.) To suggest a book for the
list, please contact us.
Please note that the Waterboro Public Library does not have most of these books!
INGRAHAM, Joseph Holt
- Burton, or the Sieges, a Romance (1838; 2 volumes)
- The Corsair of Casco Bay; or, The Pilot's Daughter (1844): 54 pp.
- Scarlet Feather, or the Young Chief of the Abenaquies: A Romance
of the Wilderness of Maine (1845): Fictional romantic love-passage
of Natanis and Willewa, two star-crossed lovers from rival tribes, set in
the wilderness of Maine against the backdrop of a pending British invasion during the American Revolution. 66 pp.
IRVING, John
- The Cider House Rules (1985): Novel set in rural Maine in the first half of the 20th century,
of a saintly doctor who directs an orphanage, and his
favorite orphan Homer Wells. WPL
JACOB, Suzanne
- A Beach in Maine (1993; transl. Susanna Finnell): Lyrical novella, describing the
poignant sojourn of twins on a Maine beach. Mourning the death of their mother, they confront
their present by juxtaposing it with their past together. 58 pp. Quebec writer.
JANIS, Christine M.
- Hiding in Plain Sight (2000): Suspense. In the small town
of Timber Falls, Maine, strangers are noticed and violent crime is
rare. But when Emma DuValle moves into her childhood home after the
death of her father, a string of seemingly connected murders rocks
the quiet town. 408 pp.
JENSEN, Muriel
- Fantasies and Memories (1987): Romance. Harlequin "Born in the USA" series. 216 pp.
- That Summer in Maine (2003): Harlequin Recovering from a frightening experience, actress Maggie Lawton
spends a summer in Maine with single father Duffy March and his young
children.
JEWETT, Sarah Orne / [Jewett Author Information]
- The Country Doctor (1884): Set in Maine, this is the story of
a young woman who follows in the footsteps of her father to become a doctor.
- The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896): Set in the post-Civil War small coastal
town of Dunner's Landing in Maine, this is the story of a gentle and generous people
on a rugged and unforgiving coast.
- Deephaven (1877): The story of two young Boston women who, for the summer,
leave their home to explore and end up in a coastal community in Maine. WPL
- The Tory Lover (1901): Historical novel of the Revolution with
the setting around Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Berwick, Maine.
- Best Stories of Sarah Orne Jewett (1988): Edited by Waugh, Greenberg, and Donavan.
Introduction by Josephine Donovan. Includes Miss Sydney's Flowers -- A bit of
shore life -- An autumn holiday -- Tom's husband -- A white heron --
The Dulham ladies -- The king of Folly Island -- The courting of
Sister Wisby -- Miss Tempy's watchers -- Going to Shrewsbury -- In
dark New England days -- Miss Esther's guest -- The flight of
Betsey Lane -- The only rose -- Aunt Cynthy Dallett -- Martha's
lady -- The foreigner.
- Novels and Stories: Selections (1994): Includes Deephaven -- A Country Doctor --
The Country of the Pointed Firs -- Dunnet Landing Stories -- Selected
Stories and Sketches. 937 pp. with biographical note.
JOHNSON, Helen Kendrick
- Raleigh Westgate, or, Epimenides in Maine: A Romance (1889): 259 pp.
JOHNSON, Willis / [Willis Johnson Author Information]
- The Girl Who Would Be Russian and Other Stories (1986): Stories. Includes
The Great Valentinova; The Ice Fish; Prayer for the Dying; The Girl Who Would Be
Russian; Sarajevo; Heir to the Realm; The Last Song of Exile. 180 pp.
JOHNSTON, Velda
- A Presence in an Empty Room (1980): Suspense. Susan loved the old brick mansion at first sight, as
quickly as she had fallen in love with Martin Summerslee, her new husband. She
felt the moody history of the Maine estate surround her. But mere
hours after arriving, her happiness was shattered.
- The Other Karen (1983): Suspense story set in Maine about an unemployed actress who
assumes another woman's identity only to find herself caught in
a dangerous secret.
JONES, Able
- Country Living, Country Dying: A Witty Tale of
Secrets Unburied (1994): Story of a Maine village that's deceptively quiet,
until a skeleton turns up at the town dump on Halloween night. Also
published as Country Living, Country Dying: A Maine Entertainment.
JONES, Linda
- Big Bad Wolf (1997): Historical Romance. A Faerie Tale
Romance series. Setting is Kingsport, Maine, 1893. Molly Kincaid knew
she should have been scared of the dark stranger when he confronted her on her shortcut
through the Maine woods. She had been warned of Wolf Trevelyan's questionable past and sinister
ways. But there is something compelling in his gaze, and Molly is willing to throw caution and her grandmother's concerns
to the wind.
JORDAN, Evora
- Tainted Sand (2003): Hannah Gray thinks her new home must be built
on an old Indian burial ground and the spirits are angry. Then
a friend mysteriously disappears in a Belfast department store. Based on
a true 1989 murder mystery.
JUDKINS, Roger
- The Penobscot Conspiracy (2000): Christian Historical Fiction/Mystery.
In October 2000, University of Maine (Orono) Naval Archaeology chair Dr. Jules Morlock
claims that using sonar, he can prove that at least 40 Revolutionary battleships -- none
with any evidence of enemy damage -- are on the bottom of Penobscot Bay. A game of cat and
mouse ensues as Morlock plans to prove his theory that Washington ordered the sinking
of the fleet, while a U.S. Navy Captain tries to stop him from finding the final
proof he needs. Most of the book is set during the time of the Revolutionary War.
KEAN, Rob
- The Pledge (1999): At Simbury's most exclusive frat house, a teenage boy
is found dead, battered, his bones broken, with sick rhymes
etched in his body. The cops call it suicide. Set at a "sleepy little
college in Maine." Author attended Bowdoin College.
KENNEY, Susan / [Kenney Author Information]
- In Another Country: A Novel (1984)
- Graves In Academe (1985): Members of the English department at Maine's Canterbury College
are slowly being removed by a very vicious killer. Literature professor Roz Howard
has just arrived on campus to replace a recently deceased colleague. Now,
Roz sets out to find the killer before her own term at Canterbury comes
to an untimely end. Follows Garden of Malice, which is set in England.
- Sailing (1987): Sequel to In Another Country.
For Sara, sailing was first a gift to Phil, a symbol of her belief that he
would survive his cancer another summer. For Phil, sailing was both
self-discovery and escape -- from his fears, from his doctors,
from Sara's constant vigilance. Set near Penobscot Bay, Maine.
- One Fell Sloop: A Roz Howard Mystery (1990): 3rd in the Roz Howard series.
Long distance lovers Alan Stewart and Roz Howard get away on a sailing holiday along Maine's rocky coast, only
to discover a dead body on a semideserted island. When the police call
it an accident, they are drawn into uncovering the truth.
KENVIN, Roger Lee
- Harpo's Garden and Other Stories (1997): Short stories set in Maine. Includes
Harpo's garden; China; Starfish; The eye of the piano; Harpo
inamorato; The discovery of Australia; The sound of snow falling;
The Gaelic boy; Sumner of the Spanish Main; Austria Noon; The
Winds of March; On Spanish Island.
KIDD, Flora
- Desperate Desire (1984, Harlequin): Lenore has gone to Maine to rebuild her
life after her involvement with Herzel Rubin ends in rejection.
Then all too soon her heart goes out to Adam Jonson, a half-blind
man who is more bitter and mistrustful of people than Lenore can ever be.
The electrifying passion that flares between them scares Lenore.
KIMBALL, Michael / [Kimball Author Information]
- Firewater Pond (1985): Novel set in the idyllic Maine, involving such
characters as Zippy and Ruth, an aging hippy couple taking refuge
from the sixties; the Mutants, a truly mean motorcycle gang; Luthor,
a black man who has decided to be an Indian and takes naked to
the woods with bow and arrow; and Angel, who owns the world's most vicious poodle.
- Undone (1997): Gravity, Maine, is a small sleepy town.
But there are people with plans that could change things in Gravity forever. Bobby and his wife Noel
have been working on a scam for 5 years. He'll pretend to die, get buried, and Noel will dig him up.
Simple.
- Mouth to Mouth (2000): Ellen Chambers is a schoolteacher who
lives on a working sheep farm in Destin, Maine. Following in her footsteps,
her pregnant teenage daughter is getting married to a violent man. As Ellen
wonders if it is possible to get away with murder, a handsome young wedding guest
whispers to her that anything is possible. The uninvited stranger
is Neal Chambers, her husband's nephew who left town twelve years ago
in the wake of a family tragedy. With her own marriage crumbling, Ellen
is a woman in desperate need of a friend, but by accepting Neal's
offer of friendship, Ellen inadvertently sets in motion events that pull them
together into an inescapable web of lies, secrets, betrayals, and death.
- Green Girls (2002): A suspense novel set in Maine. Presents
a challenge in identifying what is real and what is concocted by the main character's
imagination.
KIMBALL, Stephen
- Night Cries (1995): Cyberthriller. A family becomes the target of
a mysterious sadistic killer. Even though they have an arsenal
of computers and nerves of steel, the enemy has methods equally
high-tech. But the enemy also has primal terror on his side. Set in Maine.
KIMBROUGH, Kathryn
- Nellie, the Obvious (1869): Gothic set in Maine.
- Joyce, the Beloved (1885): Gothic set in Maine.
KING, Lily
- The English Teacher (2005): Vida, a single mother living with her 15-year-old son
on a Maine island, has tried to conceal from him the truth about his past. Then she accepts
a marriage proposal, and her carefully constructed life starts to unravel.
KING, Stephen / [Stephen King Author Information]
- Different Seasons (1982): Four stories, including the novella The
Body, on which the film "Stand By Me" was based. Takes
place in fictional Castle Rock. Also includes the novellas Rita Hayworth
and Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil, and The Breathing Method.
- Cujo (1981): Tale of a demonic St. Bernard. Takes place Castle Rock, Maine.
- Pet Sematary (1983): A horror novel of a graveyard where
generations of children have buried their pets. Dr. Louis Creed and his wife Rachel chose rural Maine
to settle their family and bring up their children. It seems a better place than smog-covered
Chicago, or so they believe until Louis finds the old pet burial
ground located in the backwoods of the quiet community of Ludlow.
- Skeleton Crew (1985): Collection that includes a short novel (The Mist),
two poems, and 20 short stories on such themes as an evil toy monkey, a
human-eating water slick, a machine that avenges murder, and unnatural
creatures that inhabit the thick woods near Castle Rock, Maine.
- It (1986): They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they were
grown-up men and women who had gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none
of them could withstand the force that drew them back to Derry, Maine to face the nightmare without an end, and
the evil without a name.
- The Tommyknockers (1988): Takes place in Castle Rock, Maine.
- Needful Things: The Last Castle Rock Story (1991): New to the town of Castle Rock, shopkeeper Leland
Gaunt offers the townfolk their dreams and desires, taking perverse
pleasure in seeing how much they are willing to pay.
- The Dark Half (1989): Set in Castle Rock, Maine, as Thad Beaumont tries to
rid himself of his pseudonym, George Stark.
- Cycle of the Werewolf (1989; with Berni Wrightson): Horror. The first scream
came from the snowbound railwayman who felt the fangs ripping at
his throat. The next month there was a scream of ecstatic agony from
the woman attacked in her snug bedroom. Now scenes of unbelieving horror come
each time the full moon shines on the isolated Maine town of Tarker
Mills. No one knows who will be attacked next. Large colour and black-and-white
illustrations.
- Gerald's Game (1992): When rough sex in a Maine summerhoue
between Jessie and Gerald Burlingame turns deadly, leaving Gerald dead and Jessie
handcuffed to the bed, it sets in motion a terrifying and psychologically twisted 28 hours.
- Dolores Claiborne (1993): Forced by overwhelming evidence to
confess her life of crime, Dolores Claiborne, foul-tempered resident of Maine's Little
Tall Island, describes how her disintegrating marriage years before caused her heart to turn murderous.
- Insomnia (1994): Ralph Roberts can't fall asleep--but he's still having nightmares. He
used to be an ordinary guy, until insomnia robbed him of sleep. Now
he's no longer ordinary; he can see horrible things happening to people
of Derry, Maine.
- Bag of Bones (1998): Grieving 40-year-old bestselling novelist Mike Noonan returns
to Sara Laughs, the summer house on the Maine lake he shared with his wife,
Jo, who died suddenly 4 years ago. He finds that the town has changed as a millionaire
twist the town to his ends: to wrest his 3-year-old granddaughter away from her mother.
- Storm of the Century (1999): The residents of Little
Tall Island have seen their share of nasty Maine Nor'easters, but
this one is different. Not only is it packing hurricane-force winds and up
to five feet of snow, it's bringing something worse. Just as the first
flakes begin to fall, Martha Clarendon, one of Little Tall Island's
oldest residents, suffers an unspeakably violent death. While her blood
dries, Andre Linoge, the man responsible, sits calmly in Martha's easy
chair holding his cane topped with a silver wolf's head.
- Hearts in Atlantis (2000): Five interconnected narratives deeply rooted in the sixties and haunted by the Vietnam War.
The title story is told by Pete Riley, a freshman at the University of
Maine, who with his friends has become obsessed with the card game Hearts.
Many jeopardize their grades and thus their scholarships as a result,
but the real threat is greater than flunking out; in 1966, leaving school
means being drafted to Vietnam.
- Riding the Bullet (2000; ebook): Takes place in Maine, where college
student Alan Parker gets a phone call that his mother just had a stroke and
is in the hospital. Hitchiking home to her, Alan runs into trouble....
- Dreamcatcher (2001): Takes place in Derry. Four childhood
friends, each laboring under the burden of their own midlife crisis, agree to take
their annual hunting trip to the north Maine woods. There they are quickly and violently
drawn into the immediate aftermath of an invasive landing by a viral/fungal/parasitic
alien race. Though one of the friends has always been slightly telepathic, infection by
the aliens has the side effect of enhancing mind-reading ability in humans. The
story becomes a race to prevent the aliens from conquering Earth by viral contamination
of the water supply.
KING, Tabitha
Nodd's Ridge, Maine, series:
- Caretakers (1983): A haunting novel about love against all odds,
set in the fictional town of Nodd's Ridge, Maine. They never should have known each
other. Torie Christopher was a member of the Maine aristocracy, reckless and
willful, wed to a blue-blooded doctor, and enjoying all the pleasures and privileges
of wealth and position. Joe Nevers was of the working class, married to a woman
determined to keep him in his place, and with only his rock-hard strength and unbending pride
to depend on for dignity. Now, in a night filled with all the phantoms of the past and all
the shifting shapes of love, Torie and Joe have to strip bare the truth about themselves and
their lives, for they share secrets no one else knows.
- The Trap (1985, published in the U.K. as Wolves at the Door): Pat and Olivia have it all: health, two
lovely children, and successful careers that provide income enough for
two homes. Unfortunately, the marriage seems to be falling apart.
Liv takes their young son to their summer home in the dead of winter
to relax and think things over, little knowing that they are in
for a terrifying fight for survival against unspeakable wickedness.
- Pearl (1988): A violent love triangle in a small Maine town.
Pearl Dickenson arrives in tiny Nodd's Ridge, Maine, to claim an
inheritance and lead a quiet life. But soon, exotic Pearl threatens the fabric
of everyday life in Nodd's Ridge as she becomes involved with two attractive,
very different men, whose seething rivalry explodes into violence.
- One on One (1993): Coming-of-age story on and off the basketball court,
of sexual initiation and an awakening into love.
- The Book of Reuben (1994): Prequel to Pearl and One on One, another Nodd's Ridge novel.
Reuben Styles, a peripheral player in King's earlier novels, becomes an
adult, takes over a local filling station, marries the girl he's loved since
they were both teenagers, and fathers three children. Although mired in a marriage
that even the improbably patient and long-suffering Reuben recognizes as a disaster, he's
totally unprepared for Laura's vindictive behavior when she asks for a divorce.
Other books by Tabitha King set in Maine:
- Small World (1981): The story of a nerdy genius who invents a device that can
shrink people to six inches tall. When a beautiful television anchor is shrunk and made to live in
a doll house, not only does she have to deal with the consequences of being so tiny,
she also has to endure the psychological and sexual terror of the
genius's evil accomplice.
- Survivor (1997): This book builds on the characters created in One On One.
An offbeat, spike-haired, but lovable college student falls in love with the university's star athlete.
They both have personal demons to overcome in finding their way to each other and their work. Maine natives
will recognize the city of Bangor and the University of Maine at Orono as the setting.
KNICKERBOCKER, Charles H. / [Knickerbocker Author Information]
- The Boy Came Back (1952): Story of what happened in a small Maine town when the town's
bad boy comes back after an absence of ten years. The townspeople
worried about what the boy would do to Rockport Falls, but it was what
Rockport Falls did to the boy that led to violence.
- Juniper Island (1958): The loves, the hates, the alliances and misalliances that
develop among the native fishermen and the summer millionaires on a Maine coast island.
- Summer Doctor (1963): Doctor tells his story of how he and his
dog, Slob, live on remote Juniper island off the coast of
Maine 10 weeks of the year.
KNIGHT, Phyllis
- Switching the Odds (1992): Mystery, featuring lesbian private investigator Lil Ritchie. Set in Portland, Maine.
- Shattered Rhythms (1994): Lil Ritchie investigates the disappearance of a
jazz guitarist. Set in Portland, Maine.
KNOWLES, Ardeana H.
- Pink Chimneys: A Novel of 19th Century Maine (1987):
Engaging story of three women on the Maine frontier: Maude Richmond Webber, a midwife
whose tradition is being threatened by physicians; redheaded Fanny
Hogan, who becomes mistress of a Bangor bordello; and Elizabeth Emerson,
Fanny's illegitimate daughter who learns her identity through tragic circumstances.
The story begins with the British Occupation of 1814 and is set against the
backdrop of temperance crusades, emerging statehood, and the explosive
economic and political importance of Bangor, Maine.
KOTZWINKLE, William
- The Bear Went Over the Mountain (1996): In rural Maine, a bear finds
a manuscript, borrows clothes and food from a local store, and
goes to the big city to seek fame and fortune as a novelist.
Kotzwinkle throws barbs at the publishing business, Wall Street, academics,
and back-to-nature women in this satire/fantasy.
KUBITZ, Frances R.
- Damariscove Island (1997): Mystery set on an island near Damariscotta.
A wealthy and well-known artist settles on family land on Damariscove
to find a new life after a mysterious boat explosion kills his wife and best friends.
- The Hypocrites (2000): A story about an FBI agent working undercover in Boothbay Harbor on a case
of smuggled gems. Set around the two rocky isles east of Fisherman's Island.
- The Cuckolds (2001): The body of a young woman, decorated with
shells, is found on a Florida beach and clues lead investigators to Maine.
LACY, Al
- Season of valor (1996):
Christian historical fiction. Battles of Destiny series, #6.
As teenagers, Shane and Ashley promise to love each other forever.
But when Ashley's parents return to Ireland and take their daughter with
them, the sweethearts sadly bid each other farewell. Both find other loves and
marry. When Ashley eventually returns to Maine, the friendship between
the two is rekindled. But even as old friends reunite, the seeds of tragedy
grow in their lives, in the forms of illness and war. Can love overcome sorrow?
LAFLAMME, Mark
- The Pink Room (2005): A grieving writer moves into an abandoned home in northern Maine where
a top physicist had been conducting and experiment to bring his dead daughter back to live. Author lives in Lewiston.
LAING, Alexander
- The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck (1934): Gothic horror novel set in Maine.
Grim novel of insane experiments, murder, blood drinkers, and hexes.
LANDAY, William
- Mission Flats (2003): Mystery. Ben Truman is police chief
of tiny Versailles, Maine. The action takes place after Ben discovers the bloated body of
a Boston Asst. District Attorney in a deserted cabin out by the
lake. The book is set in both fictitious Versailles, and in fictitious Mission Flats, a run-down
drug-infested area near Boston.
LANDESMAN, Peter
- The Raven (1995): Won the 1996 American Association of Arts and
Letters Best First Fiction Award. The book is fictional, but based
on an actual event involving a coastal Maine pleasure cruise
that went horribly awry. Setting out from Bailey Island in June 1941,
a top-heavy tour boat was packed with thirty-six picnickers from Rumford,
Maine. The boat disappeared into a thick fog and was never seen again. The only clues it left
behind were the bodies of a dozen female passengers and the
male captain, pulled from Casco Bay several days later.
LANDON, Herman
- Gray Magic (1922): A Gray Phantom mystery set in Maine.
- The Owl's Warning (1932): Pulp mystery novel set in Maine.
LANDRY, Horace P.
- Death Under Tall Pines: A Maine Mystery (1998):
Did a falling tree or a bullet kill a vacationer on
a fishing trip in the Maine wilderness? A classic whodunit.
- Death on the Rocks (2002): Murder mystery set in the Moosehead
Lake region, 1949. A frozen body is found in a hunting lodge and a victim vanishes
without leaving any footprints in the snow. Retired priest Father Timothy
O'Toole helps investigate.
LANGLEY, Alicia
- Mainely Lesbians (2003): Novel. Meeting in a gay bar in Boston, a
group of lesbians form bonds and develop mutual interests that lead them to Maine.
LAWRENCE, Margaret / [Lawrence Author Information]
- Hearts and Bones (1996): In the midst of a pitiless winter in Rufford, Maine - a town deeply
scarred by America's recent, bloody war of revolution - a young wife and
mother has been raped and murdered in her own home. The savage crime
draws midwife Hannah Trevor into an investigation that could
destroy everything and everyone she loves. Nominated for the Edgar and Agatha Awards for
Best Mystery Novel
- Blood Red Roses: A Novel of Historical Suspense (1997): A tale set in Maine, 1786.
A sequence of terrible murders rocks the town of Rufford as the widowed midwife Hannah
fights to keep her 8-year-old daughter.
- The Burning Bride (1998): In 1786, the townsfolk of Rufford, Maine are having
their annual military celebration, which is interrupted by the death of
the town's so-called surgeon, who is found with a bullet to his
head and chest, and his feet burned.
LEA, Sydney
- A Place in Mind (1989): Setting is Grand Lake Stream in Maine's Washington County,
cleverly disguised as the fictitious town of McLean. The novel concerns fly-fishing, hunting, and
the unlikely friendship between professor Brant Healey and Louis, an unlettered, superstitious woodsman.
Vermont author.
LEFFINGWELL, Alsop
- The Mystery of Bar Harbor: A Melo-Dramatic Romance of France and Mt. Desert (1887)
LEONARD, Constance
- Aground (1984): Tracy James mystery series. Tracy James leaves her contented life in Florida
to become involved in a mind-controlling cult in Maine and to learn
why an old family friend's lobster business is being sabotaged. Could also
be suitable for young adults. 172 pp.
LETHEM, Jonathan
- Motherless Brooklyn (1999): Detective story, set primarily in New York City,
but the denouement takes place in Maine, complete with fishermen, urchin divers and Down East accents.
Features Lionel Essrog, a detective with Tourette's syndrome, who tracks down the killer of
his boss, Frank Minna. Won a National Book Critics Circle Award.
LIBBY, Michelle
- Dog Days of Summer (2005): A young woman from Connecticut finds her
first teaching job in Franklin, Maine, and also finds romance with the school's
head custodian, who has fled to Maine following a career crisis.
LIBHART, Wayne P.
- The SEDI Defense (2005): When Abigail Pugh is charged with murder after a Mount
Desert camp fire, she insists that young attorney Danny Hardy handle her case.
LINCOLN, Joseph C.
- The Woman-Haters: A Yarn Of Eastboro Twin Lights (1911;
ill. Howard Heath): Story of a lighthouse keeper.
- Fair Harbor (1922/1942; ill. H.M. Brett): Humorous story of Cap'n Sears Kendrick who became director
of the quaint and cantankerous inhabitants of The Home For Mariners Women.
LIVINGSTON, Armstrong
- Magic for Murder: A Story of Violence and Suspense on an
Island off the Coast of Maine (1936):
Occult mystery thriller.
LOUD, Ethel Godfrey
- Turn the Clock Backward (1951): Short stories about Eastern Maine.
LOVE, Kathy
- Wanting Something More (2005): Supermodel Marty intends to expose the Millbrook (ME) Chief
of Police as the leering, conniving womanizer she remembers from high school.
LUDLUM, Robert
- The Bourne Ultimatum (1990): At a small-time carnival on the outskirts
of Baltimore, two men, each mysteriously summoned by telegram, witness
a bizarre killing. The telegrams are signed Jason Bourne, but are actually sent
by Carlos, the Jackal. What these two men share is the closely guarded secret of Jason
Bourne's true identity; Bourne is really David Webb, professor of Oriental
studies, husband and father of two children, now nearing his fiftieth birthday and living on a remote campus in Maine.
MACDOUGALL, Arthur R. Jr.
- Dud Dean Yarns (1934)
- The Sun Stood Still, and Other Dud Dean Stories (1939)
- Dud Dean and His Country (1946): Hunting and fishing stories of the Maine woods,
featuring one of the all-time great characters of sporting literature, the fictional Dud Dean.
- Under a Willow Tree (1946): Dud Dean
stories about angling, hunting and camping in the wilds of Maine.
- Where Flows the Kennebec, More Tales About Dud Dean (1947):
Collection of anecdotes by popular mid-century Maine chronicler.
MACINERNEY, Karen / [MacInerney Author Information]
Gray Whale Inn culinary/cozy mystery series
- Murder on the Rocks (May 2006): Natalie's career start as an innkeeper on
Cranberry Island, Maine, coincides with developer Bernard Katz's plans to build a big golf course on an
endangered tern colony next door (with her inn as its parking lot). Of course when Katz is found
dead at the base of a cliff, the police turn their attention to someone who had a lot to lose if Katz's
plans were to come to fruition -- Natalie.
- Dead and Berried (May 2007): Heading out to pick cranberries one autumn morning, Natalie
stumbles across the body of her part-time helper with a gunshot wound to the chest. To complicate things,
he ex-fiance comes to town, significantly cooling her budding relationship with the handsome guy next door.
MACLEOD, Charlotte / [MacLeod Author Information]
- Vane Pursuit (1989): A Peter Shandy mystery. A dastardly
gang of rogues is sneaking around Balaclava county (Mass.), snatching priceless
antique Praxiteles Lumpkin weathervanes. Helen Shandy, a librarian, travels
to Sasquamahoc, Maine, to protect another priceless vane, and while there
goes on a whale watching tour, which is hijacked by the vane snatchers.
- The Gladstone Bag (1989): A Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn mystery. Setting is
an isolated summer place on Pocapuk Island, Maine.
- Something in the Water (1994): Professor Peter Shandy, New England's homegrown Hercule
Poirot, has journeyed to the Maine coast in search of a mystery
flower-and to escape his wife's all female house party. Now, supping
at a country inn, he witnesses sudden death as a town bully keels over into his chicken
pot pie. Is it fowl play?
- Exit the Milkman (1997): The Shandys house guest, on her way
home to Maine from Balaclava, discovers the Shandys' missing neighbour
in a wrecked Lincoln Town Car.
MADISON, Susan
- The Color of Hope (2000): The Connelly family is in trouble. Ruth is a Boston lawyer in a high-powered job. Her husband Paul,
a professor, is beginning to drink too much. Both have been unfaithful. Their daughter, Josie,
is going through a hostile and difficult adolescence. Then Josie drowns in a boating accident while they're
on vacation, and the family falls apart even further. But when their son (and only surviving child)
contracts cancer, Ruth and Paul are drawn back together -- only to be tested one more time by another crisis.
Partially set in Maine.
MAIN, William J.
- Masters of Midnight (2003): Comprised of four novellas -- set in Maine, Arkansas, San Francisco, and
West Virginia -- in which vampires play a prominent and
erotically gay role. The Maine novella: "Thirty years ago in
Cravensport, Maine murders and disappearances occurred with no explanation.
Jeremy thinks the story will make a good human-interest piece, but
he also has a personal stake in the story as one of the
vanished was his father" [from Harriet Klausner review].
MAINE WRITERS & PUBLISHERS ALLIANCE
- Maine Speaks: An Anthology of Maine Literature (1996): A collection of
classic and contemporary fiction, nonfiction and poetry, by
Maine writers.
MANFREDI, Renee
- Above the Thunder (2003): About a middle-aged widow, her otherworldly ten-year-old
granddaughter, and a gay couple confronting their demons, whose lives intertwine on
the coast of Maine
MANNS, Robert
- The Maine Quartet and other one-act plays. Volume Two. (2002): The woods
of Aroostook County, Piscataquis County, and Lake Megunticook provide
the settings for the plays and monologues in this volume.
MARKS, Jason
- Chiaroscuro (1985): Set in the late 1960s, a story about a 14-year-old boy living
on an island off the coast of Maine with his parents and his
struggles to enter adulthood.
MARLOW, David
- Surreal Estate (2001): Darkly comic suspense thriller. Dewey and
his pregnant wife, Judith, are spending a relaxing summer on small, unpopulated Cranberry Island in Maine.
The many strange and surreal events unfolding about their isolated
cottage keep turning ever more ominous until disaster strikes. Dewey
and Judith take turns alternating the reins of narration, as each of
them clarifies their side of what went so terribly wrong.
MARSHALL, Edison
- American Captain (1954) : The blazing adventures of
an American sailor from Maine to the slave pens of Tripoli,
from the sheepskin bed of a Tuareg princess to the gaming
rooms of London.
MARTIN, Sally F.
- Shape of Dark (2002): Mystery/thriller set in fictional Maine
town of Mariana.
MARTIN, Sarah Beth (pseud. of Sarah Lepine) / [Lepine Author Information]
- The One True Ocean (2003) : While seeking solace from
her grief, a young widow returns to her childhood home in Maine.
What begins as an escape into her aunt's mysterious past becomes
an exploration of her own identity and guilt. Set in the fictional
town of Cape Wood, featuring the Southern Maine coast as a
lush but haunting backdrop.
MARTYN, Wyndham
- Murder Island (1928): Mystery. Set in Maine?
MASON, F. Van Wyck
- Blue Hurricane (1954): Fiction set in Penobscot County,
Maine, 1861-1862.
MATHESON, Richard
- Hell House (1971): Scary ghost story. A rich, dying old man desiring
to find out the truth about life after death, hires three people -- a scientist and two mediums --
and giving them 7 days, sends them to stay at Belasco House in Maine,
a known haunted house, in an effort to answer his question. Filmed
as Legend of Hell House in 1973 with a screenplay by Matheson.
MATIN, Sally
- Shape of Dark (2003): A mystery about a young
woman and her two daughters, set on the coast of Maine
MATTHEWS, A.J. (AKA Rick Hautala) / [Hautala Author Information]
- The White Room (2001): Horror set in Hilton, Maine. Polly Harris
is a mentally fragile woman. In the middle of a hospital emergency room,
Polly locks eyes with her 10-year-old neighbor Heather
just before Heather dies of her traumatic wounds; Polly understands that
Heather is somehow now within her. Meanwhile, Tim Harris, Polly's husband, is ready
to spend the summer in Maine with Polly and their son Brian, working on
the old family house. But their summer is not tranquil. Polly continually hears
Heather's voice, warning her of some terrible danger. She glimpses shadows of people
in empty rooms and faces pressed briefly against windows. Slowly things
fall into place and Polly realizes that not only is she haunted but
so is the old Harris house. The danger Heather warns her of is real and present. 368 pp.
MATTESON, Stefanie
These two books are part of a cozy series, with varied locales, including Rhode Island,
Palm Beach, FL, and New York.
- Murder at Teatime (1991): What better antidote to the pressures of Broadway than a vacation on
an elegant island off the Maine coast? That's what Charlotte Graham thinks until her
seaside getaway lands her knee-deep in local intrigue. A fanatical book collector,
a witch specializing in herbal remedies, and a crusty old lobster
fisherman are at odds over land, love, and money. And when someone spikes
a cup of tea with poison, Charlotte may end up in a lethal brew.
- Murder on High (1994): Charlotte Graham may be seventy-one, but she's a
fit and feisty Yankee with a talent for sleuthing. From the cliffs of
Maine's highest mountain, Mount Katahdin, to the world of Hollywood, this
complex mystery is rich with natural and historical detail.
Eccentric characters on both coasts enliven Charlotte's search for the truth. WPL
MAYO, Eleanor R.
- Turn Home (1945): Returned veteran stands on his own merits in a Maine village.
- October Fire (1951): Maine village half destroyed by forest fire.
- Swan's Harbor: A Maine Coast Novel (1953): Twin brothers, Art and Steve Swan, are alike in looks but not in character.
Art is steady, the backbone of the thriving lobster and fish packing
business their father has left; Steve is handsome, a bachelor, with
a string of ladies. The novel tells of one summer in their lives
when the hidebound Maine twins patch up their difficulties.
MCCURTIN, Peter
- Cosa Nostra aka The Hit (1971): The Mafia came with money and guns to Chapmans Corners,
and only one man even thought of stopping them. Greeley, the cynical
hard drinking crooked cop, had done some dirty things in his life, but
there were limits -- well, maybe. Set New England (Maine?).
MCFAUL, Alexander D.
- Ike Glidden in Maine: A Story of Rural Life in a Yankee
District (1902): Illustrated country life novel. 297 pp.
MCLANE, Charles B.
- Red Right Returning (2004): Set on a Penobscot Bay island, novel follows the lives of a
dozen islanders and their families through tragedy, change, and triumph. Although the story
begins just after World War II, it explores timeless island themes: the subtle tensions
(and attractions) between islanders and summer people, the special dynamics of
island life, the inevitable competition for lobsters, and how an island
community adjusts to change.
MCLAUGHLIN, Robert William
- Caleb Matthews; An Idyl of the Maine Coast (1913): Story of a Maine lobsterman. 83 pp.
MCNAIR, Wesley (editor) / [McNair Author Information]
- The Quotable Moose: A Contemporary Maine Reader (1994):
Gathering of short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry focusing on
the old Maine and the new.
MEDWED, Mameve
- Mail (1998): Set in Cambridge, Mass., and in Old Town,
Maine. The heroine, Katinka O'Toole, is from Old Town, and there
are many scenes set in Old Town in the novel.
MEIER, Leslie / [Meier Author Information]
- Mail-Order Murder: A Christmas Mystery (1991): First of the Lucy Stone Mystery Series, all of
which take place in the village of Tinker Cove, Maine
- Tippy-Toe Murder (1994): A pregnant Lucy is on the trail of Caroline Hutton, a retired
dance teacher who has mysteriously disappeared, when the irascible local hardware
merchant, Morrill Slack, takes a deathblow to the head with a video camera, and
Franny Small, the hapless salesgirl with the perfect motive, has no alibi for how she spent the afternoon of the murder.
- Trick or Treat Murder (1996): The serenity of Tinker's Cove, Maine, is shattered when
an arsonist creates havoc and sends amateur sleuth and mother of four Lucy Stone investigating.
After several historic buildings are damaged or destroyed by fire, the stakes escalate
when the body of socialite Monica Mayes is found inside the charred wreckage of her summer
home.
- Back to School Murder (1997): A bomb goes off with the noon lunch bell at the local elementary school, but not
before all the kids are safely evacuated and the new assistant principal, is hailed as a hero. By the time
the smoke clears, the fallout has resulted in murder. Everyone is stunned when the most popular teacher at
school is arrested for the crime. But not everyone is buying the open-and-shut case, including Lucy Stone.
- Mistletoe Murder (1998): As if baking holiday cookies, knitting a sweater for her husband's gift, and making her daughter's
angel costume for the church pageant weren't enough, Lucy is also working nights at the famous mail-order company
Country Cousins. But when she discovers Sam Miller, its very wealthy founder, dead in
his car from an apparent suicide, the sleuth in her knows something just doesn't smell right.
- Christmas Cookie Murder (1999): Before Lucy Stone can befriend Tinker Cove's
newest female resident, Tucker Whitney, an assistant at the daycare center, Tucker is
found strangled to death. Everyone in town knows that Tucker was
having an affair with Steve Cummings, who was separated from his wife,
but when Steve is arrested for murder, even his wife strongly feels her spouse is incapable
of performing the act. Lucy begins to snoop.
- Valentine Murder (1999)
- Turkey Day Murder (2000): As Lucy prepares for the Thanksgiving
festivities she must investigate the murder of an Native American activist.
- Wedding Day Murder (2001): Lucy is helping her best friend plan a wedding reception.
When the groom's body is found floating in the nearby sea, a victim of murder, almost everyone within in town has
a motive.
- Birthday Party Murder (2002): While trying to organize two birthday parties, Lucy Stone investigates the apparent suicide of attorney Sherman Cobb.
- Star Spangled Murder (2004): The focus is on small town politics: a dog accused of killing chickens,
lobster poaching, nudists swimming at the local watering hole.
MELANSON, Susan Chapman
- Wentworth-by-the-Sea, 1969 (2000): Novel about life in the main dining
room of one of the last of the grand resort hotels, told from the perspective
of a waitress working her way through college. Author lives in South Hiram.
MELNICOVE, Mark
- Inside Vacationland: New Fiction from the Real Maine (1985): Short stories by
Carolyn Chute, Willis Johnson, Fred Bonnie, Dan Domench,
Sanford Phippen, Rebecca Cummings, S.T. Colby, Stephen Petroff,
Lucy Honig, and others.
METALIOUS, Grace
- Peyton Place (1956): Secrets, murder, incest, and adultery in a small New England town. Camden,
Maine, was the setting for the movie. WPL
- Return to Peyton Place (1959)
MICHAELS, Barbara
- The Crying Child (1971): From the moment she arrived
on King's Island, off the coast of Maine, Joanne McMullen knew that her sister's grief over
losing her child had driven her dangerously close to madness. But when Joanne heard
the same child's voice that her sister had heard wailing in the woods, she knew something
terrible was happening.
MICHAELS, Fern
- Beyond Tomorrow (2001, Harlequin): Carly Andrews's predictable life as the
manager of a real estate agency was turned upside down the day Adam Noble
commissioned her to find his dream house. Takes place Bar Harbor, Maine.
MILES, Cassie
- Mysterious Vows: Mail Order Bride (1995, Harlequin Intrique): Maria can' remember her real name, where
she'd come from or the mysterious, brooding man who claimed she'd
agreed to marry him. She awakened with nothing more than a wedding ring --
and directions to Jason Walker's secluded island. Maine?
MILLER, Sue
- The World Below (2001): Novel set in 1919 Maine and modern-day Vermont.
Georgia Rice is diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent away to a
sanitarium where she meets the doomed young man who will become her lover.
Eighty years later, Georgia's granddaughter Catherine stumbles upon
the true story of her grandmother's life and marriage, and of
the misunderstanding upon which she built a lasting love.
MINOT, Susan
- Evening (1998): The story of a woman on her deathbed in Cambridge, Mass., who
amidst the delirium and images of her past full life relives a love affair she had forty
years earlier, when at twenty-five she attended the wedding
of her best friend on an island in Maine.
MONBRUN, Estelle
- Meurtre a Petite Plaisance (1998; Murder with Little Pleasure):
Jean-Pierre Fouchereaux, young French police chief, goes
to Maine to inquire after the murder of journalist Adrien
Lampereur, who was found dead in the garden of Marguerite Yourcenar.
MOORE, Elizabeth Jordan / [EJ Moore Author Information]
- Cold Times (1992): Follows the fates of two poor rural Maine families whose
lives are intertwined, from the 1950s to the 1980s.
MOORE, Jim / [Jim Moore Author Information]
- Official Secrets (1996): A member of the IRA is caught smuggling guns from Belfast, Maine, to
Belfast, Ireland, and one of the operatives has planted a bomb at
a Maine park, set to go off at noon on the Fourth of July. The two ATF agents involved
battle criminal elements as well as red tape, political posturing and corruption within the
U.S. and British governments. WPL
MOORE, Ruth / [Ruth Moore Author Information]
- The Weir: A Novel of the Maine Coast (1943/1986): Novel of two families on a small Maine island.
- Spoonhandle (1946): Pete Stilwell and his sister Agnes want money and think they
can get it by siding with the summer people against their neighbors
and their brothers, Willie and Hod, who live on Little Spoon Island
and fish for a living. WPL
- The Fire Balloon (1948): Novel set in Maine in 1947.
- Candlemas Bay (1950): The story of the Ellis family in a small
Maine seacoast town during 1947 and 1948.
- Speak to the Winds (1956): A novel about the people who live on
a small Maine island and make their living from fishing. WPL
- The Walk Down Main Street (1960) : A novel about a small
town in Maine, and the people who lived there in 1960. Very down-home and comfortable.
MORISON, Betty Jane
A Little Maine Murder series, featuring Elizabeth Lamb Worthington, takes place in Bar Harbor, Maine:
- Champagne and a Garden (1982)
- Port and a Star Boarder (1984)
- Beer and Skittles (1985): Takes place Bar Harbor, Maine, during 4th of July celebration.
- The Voyage of the Chianti (1987): Locked-room mystery set aboard
the luxury yacht Chianti, sailing from Boston to Maine.
- The Martini Effect (1992): 12-year-old amateur sleuth Elizabeth Lamb Worthington
encounters murder at St. Augustine's, a co-ed boarding school on
Maine's Mt. Desert Island.
Non-series novel:
- Reality and Dream: A Christmas Story (1985): Story of a mother's love, disappointment,
disillusion, hope, renewal. Travelling from her Maine home to an
uncertain reception at a family Christmas party in Boston, a woman has time to review
her life, her few succeses, her many mistakes, & the years she has
missed not being part of her estranged daughter's life. Discouraged, almost defeated, she desperately
tries one last time to unite the hard realities of middle age with the bright dreams of youth in
this moving story of love and rapprochement.
MORTLAND, Donald
- The Merry Widow Fox-Trot: And Other Tales of Life in
Maine After Sixty (1998):
An anthology of 15 short stories that showcases the phenomena of life after
60. All but one of the major characters are between sixty and ninety-five,
struggling to understand their aging. The stories take place between the
1930s and the present in fictitious Maine towns and are filled with unforgettable characters.
220 pages
MUIR, Emily
- Small Potatoes (1940): Warm-hearted novel
of life farming and fishing on the Maine coast. Rare.
MUNN, Charles Clark
- Uncle Terry, a Story of the Maine Coast (1900): Typical period
romance adventure concerning a shipwreck.
- Pocket Island -- A Story Of Country Life In New England (1900): Maine historical novel.
- Rockhaven (1902): Set on Maine coast.
MURPHY, Dallas
- Don't Explain: An Artie Deemer Mystery (1996): Mystery.
When his celebrity canine, Jellyroll, is targeted by a stalker who is sending
macabre and threatening cartoons, Artie Deemer and his girlfriend Crystal take the dog to a remote Maine island,
where they are soon joined by a serial killer. Third in this mystery series.
NEBEL, Frederick
- Fifty Roads to Town (1936): A hardboiled detective novel about strangers,
stranded and snowbound in an up-state Maine town during the first
blizzard of the winter. Made into a comedy film.
NEELY, Barbara
- Blanche among the Talented Tenth (1994): House cleaner
Blanche White travels to beautiful Amber Cove to spend time with her kids and their friends.
Blanche stands out, with her dark black skin and humble profession, and her observations about the color consciousness at this exclusive
all-black resort in Maine are sharp. As Blanche finds out the secrets of this insular community, she wonders if a recent death
was really an accident. WPL
NEESON, Margaret Graham
- White Rock Ways (1999): The eight intertwined tales in this book focus on
life on a small island off the coast of Maine between 1960 and 1970.
The inhabitants range in age from an elderly, thrifty couple to
a little boy, and include teenagers, fishermen, law officials, young
lovers, housewives and newly arrived summer people. 197 pp.
NEGGERS, Carla
- On Fire (1999): Romantic suspense. After a tragic boating accident Emile Labreque disappears
leaving his granddaughter, Riley, determined to find him and clear his
name of murder. Riley teams up with an old friend of her grandfathers, FBI
Special Agent John Straker, to try to save Emile's life. But while working
together they discover a passion they find hard to ignore. Set in Maine. 376 p.
- The Harbor (2003) : Returning home to face the specter of the unsolved
murder of her father in her hometown of Goose Harbor, on the coast of Maine, former law enforcement officer
Zoe West embroils a vacationing FBI agent in her quest to capture her father's killer.
Author lives in Vermont.
NORWOOD, Hayden
- Death Down East (1941): Macbeth Archer mystery set in Maine.
NOYES, Alice Daley
- A Walk With Molly Ockett (1997): Novel of a Pigwacket medicine woman, well
known in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Fryeburg, Maine,
areas, where she assisted the sick, and delivered the babies.
OGILVIE, Elisabeth /[Ogilvie Author Information]
Bennett's Island series. All set in a mythical island town
on the edge of an outer island on the Penobscot Bay, similar to the island fishing
village of Criehaven, where Ogilvie spent childhood summers.
Time period: early 1900s-1945.
- High Tide at Noon (1944): First in the series.
- Storm Tide (1945): Joanna Bennett defies the elements and tradition
as she struggles to preserve the islanders' dream of rebuilding their community
and their livelihood.
- The Ebbing Tide (1947): Third in the series. Joanna's second husband,
Nils Sorensen, leaves their Maine coast island for the war. When a new
doctor comes to the island, Joanna and he become friends, until she realizes
with horror that he reminds her unmistakably of her romantic and loveable first
husband and that she is falling for him.
- An Answer in the Tide (1978): 4th in the series. Follows the fortunes of the third generation
of Bennett islanders, focusing on Jamie Sorensen, who has stayed clear of
romantic attachments until he moves in with an attractive married newcomer
from the mainland.
- The Dawning of the Day (1954): Romance, suspense fiction set on a remote island
off the coast of Maine, involving a young war widow overcoming the prejudice
of family rivalries.
- The Seasons Hereafter (1966): Vanessa Barton moves to Maine's lonely
Bennett's Island with her young husband. Romance.
- Strawberries in the Sea (1973): The story of a young Rosa Fleming, who
comes to Bennett's Island to flee memories of a painful divorce and becomes involved
in a dramatic fight between the island's lobstermen and a fleet of invading
fishermen.
- The Summer Of The Osprey (1987): A mysterious, wealthy lobsterman comes to Bennett Island
to catch lobsters for fun, but island residents become suspicious of his motives.
- The Day Before Winter (1997): Takes place during Vietnam War period.
Other Ogilvie books set in Maine include:
- The Witch Door (1959): Love and suspense on a sleepy summer island off the
coast of Maine
- Rowan Head (1949): The story of Miriam Chase and the tempestuous human relationships
she was swept into at Rowan Head on the Maine coast.
- Call Home the Heart (1962)
- There May Be Heaven (1964)
- Bellwood (1969) : Gothic romance set in Maine.
- Image of a Lover (1974) : Seafair Bell's summer idyll on Drummond's Island, off Maine,
begins with songs, swims, and seafood, but before long the golden
summer will end in murder and madness.
- Where the Lost Aprils Are (1975)
- The Dreaming Swimmer (1976)
- A Dancer in Yellow (1979)
- The Road to Nowhere (1983): Set in Maine.
- When the Music Stopped (1989): Suspense novel, set in the sleepy seaside village of
Job's Harbor, Maine. Scandals erupt as an incident that took place
many years ago is again brought to life.
- The World of Jennie G. (1986): Set in Maine in early 1800s. The first in the
series (Jennie About to Be) is set in Scotland.
- Jennie Glenroy (1993): Setting is based on Thomaston, Maine.
O'HARA, Mary
- The Son of Adam Wyngate (1952): Historical novel
of love and betrayal set in Kennebunkport, Maine and Brooklyn Heights,
NY, in the early 1900s. Adam Wyngate is a famous preacher, a man
of great spiritual stature. Bartholomew, his son, is also a preacher, the
pastor of a fashionable church. Bartholomew is attractive to women
and his calling exposes him to a good many curious approaches from them.
OLIVER, TEAGAN (aka Beth Oliver)
- Obsidian (2007): Jamie Rivard returns to the small coastal town
of Chandler, Maine, to search for answers about the events leading to his best friend's death.
Shelby Teague has already lost her husband to the unforgiving ocean, but when her
brother disappears during a diving incident she finds herself turning to Jamie, a stranger with
a take-charge attitude.
PACKARD, Frank L.
- The Miracle Man (1914): Mystery. Head con man Doc Madison has come up with
another brilliant scheme, this one seemingly not only easy but foolproof. With the aid of
his two underlings, The Flopper and Pale Face Harry, and his girlfriend,
Helena, he sets the plan in motion. Madison's inspiration came from
a newspaper article he read about a healer called The Patriarch in a small Maine town.
As the four descend upon the innocents of the town to pull the scam,
they get caught up in the lives of the locals and of The Patriarch.
George M. Cohan produced a hit play based on this book.
PAGE, Katherine Hall
Some of the Faith Fairchild mystery series is set in Maine:
- The Body in the Kelp (1991): Faith and her family are vacationing
on Sanpere island on Maine's Penobscot Bay, along with her friend Pix and her
family. A local artist is found floating in the bay and her recently completed quilt
seems to hold clues. WPL
- The Body in the Basement (1995): Faith's next-door neighbor
Pix Miller has agreed to check on the progress of the summer cottage
Faith and her husband Tom are having built on Maine's Sanpere Island.
Pix arrives to find that the new foundation hasn't been cast and that the
cement is about to be poured over a lovely red-and-white quilt --
and the unfortunate victim wrapped in it. WPL
- The Body in the Lighthouse (2003): The Fairchilds leave their
Massachusetts home to spend the summer renovating their cottage on
Sanpere Island, Maine, where the islanders are up in arms about
wealthy folks building toy mansions in their town. When the corpse of developer Harold Hapswell
is found jammed between two ledges at the base of the lighthouse, and
Faith herself is attacked soon afterwards, she feels compelled to investigate.
PARADISE, Viola
- Tomorrow the Harvest (1952): Historical fiction about two young women
in a 1780s Maine coast village and the events that throw their lives together.
PARETTI, Sandra
- The Magic Ship: A Novel of Romance in Old Bar Harbor (1977; transl. from German): Novel
is based on true story of huge German 4-stack liner Cecile steaming into Frenchman Bay at Bar
Harbor, Maine, and the effect she and her crew had on the town during that
dreamlike summer at the dawn of WWI. Recreates the life of Bar Harbor's Golden Age.
PARKER, Robert
- Early Autumn (1981): Spenser Mystery series. A bitter divorce is only the beginning. First
the father hires thugs to kidnap his son. Then the mother hires
Spencer to get the boy back. With a contract out on his life, he heads for the Maine woods, determined to
give a puny 15-year-old a crash course in survival and to beat
his dangerous opponents at their own brutal game.
- Wilderness (1983): Mystery-adventure writer witnesses a brutal murder and sets
out to stop a brutal killer in the rugged north woods of
Maine.
PATRICK, Erin
- Moontide (2001): Horror. A powerful story of the sea and its ghosts. Melanie
Gierek hits bottom after her family dies in a car wreck in Chicago. After the funeral,
she drives to Maine, where she'd spent a happy summer on windjammers with
her parents. When Melanie takes work on a schooner, the Louisa Lee,
a nineteenth-century sailing vessel, she finds she must solve the
mystery of the malevolent ship -- and save her own life -- by hunting down the past.
PAYNE, Nancy
- Phoenix/Maine (2003): Moving swiftly on currents of suspense and romance,
this novel by a former state representative looks at how the Maine state legislature works.
The sole survivor of a fiery plane crash in the Maine woods is taken in by an
elderly couple living on a subsistence farm. He establishes an organization
called Phoenix, whose purpose is to make a difference in the lives of ordinary
Mainers.
PELLETIER, Cathie (aka K.C. McKinnon) / [Pelletier Author Information]
- The Funeral Makers (1986): The trials that beset the McKinnons of
Mattagash, Maine, when they try to arrange a funeral for the family matriarch.
- Once upon a Time on the Banks (1989): Boisterous, tacky and opportunistic
residents of Mattagash, Maine, prepare for the unlikely wedding of a descendant
of their small town's Protestant founder to a Catholic with unacceptable French Canadian origins.
- The Weight of Winter (1991): 3rd in the Mattagash series.
- The Bubble Reputation (1993): Following her lover's suicide, Rosemary turns to her family
and friends in the small world of Bixley, Maine, where she is coaxed
out of her isolation by her gay uncle, her garrulous sister, and an
old college roommate.
- A Marriage Made at Woodstock (1994): Setting is Portland, Maine.
Married for more than twenty years, Woodstock sweethearts Chandra and Frederick, find
their marriage ending when the earth-conscious Chandra can't accept Frederick's cyberspace
career.
- Beaming Sonny Home (1997): The 4th Mattagash novel. When
her beloved son takes two women and a poodle hostage, prompting a media onslaught and worse,
Mattie Gifford begins to reflect on her life with humorous and biting insight.
- Candles on Bay Street (1998, as K.C. McKinnon): Years after leaving his childhood home
of Fort Kent, Maine, veterinarian Sam Thibodeau returns with his
wife and veterinary partner to open a practice. Sam's first girlfriend also returns to town.
PENDLETON, Don
- Island Deathtrap (1983): Executioner series #56, Mack Bolan. A juggernaut of bedrock justice
turns coastal Maine into a raging inferno.
PERKINS, Virginia Chase / [Perkins Author Information]
- One Crow, Two Crow (1971): Novel set on Maine's lonely barrens, where the land itself, fertile
only for scrub and wild blueberries, breeds into those who live there something of its strength,
its storms, and its silences. A story of goodness, of struggle and courage, and ultimately of joy.
- American House (1944; illus. Janet Nelson): Humorous story of family-run hotel in early 1900s Maine.
PERRIGO, James
- The Sheriff: A Modern Maine Story in Which Pride and Politics, Romance
and Rum are Curiously Intermingled (1911)
PETERS, VIC
- Mary's Field (2002): A debut novel about a man's spiritual struggles with
God, written in acrostic prose, set in Cape Neddick, Maine in 1974. Mary's Field Website.
PHILBRICK, W. Rodman (AKA William R. Dantz)
- Coffins (2002): A gothic tale set in a
Maine seaport village of White Harbor just prior to the
Civil War.
PHILLIPS, Jean
- Hermit's Island (1967): Gothic mystery. Torry Benson's inheritance of
an intriguing island paradise -- an unexpected legacy from a
relative she'd never even known existed -- had come at a time
when her career in New York was at a disheartening standstill.
Torry planned to make a new home, but the island soon revealed itself as a place
of fear, suspicion and murder.
PHILPIN, John
- Dreams in the Key of Blue (2000): Forensic psychiatrist Lucas Frank
has come out of retirement and returned to the East Coast to
teach a seminar on gender and the serial killer at a small
girls' college in Ragged Harbor, Maine. When one of his avid students
and her roommates are murdered, the police call upon Frank and his expertise.
PHIPPEN, Sanford / [Phippen Author Information]
- The Police Know Everything (1982): Short stories of
Downeast Maine.
- The Best Maine Stories: A Century of Short Fiction (1986): Edited
by Phippen, Charles Waugh, and Martin Greenberg. Includes stories by
Sarah Orne Jewett, Ben Ames Williams, Carolyn Chute, and others. A broad
sampling of the diverse ways authors have chronicled their individual experience with
Maine culture and character.
- The Best Maine Stories: The Marvelous Mystery (1986): Edited
by Phippen, Charles Waugh and Martin Greenberg. Stories by Willis Johnson,
Rebecca Cummings, Virgina Chase, Holman Day, Ben Ames Williams, Carolyn Chute,
Stephen Minot, Ruth Moore, Margaret Osborn, Arthur Train, more.
- Kitchen Boy (1996): The coming-of-age story of a working class Maine boy and his adventures
serving summer folk at a resort on the Maine Coast during the 1960s.
POLLACK, Elisabeth
- The Rowantree Crop (1989): Novel of magic and
illusion, mystery and murder, and romance and death; follows the characters
through four seasons of love, friendship, introspection, recurring fear and suspicion and
finally murder. WPL
- The Gathering (1997): Murder mystery set in the mountains of western Maine, somewhere close to Bethel, Maine.
POTTS, Jean
- The Troublemaker (1972): Mystery set in Maine.
PRESTON, Douglas J., and Lincoln Child
- Riptide (1998): A high-tech expedition comes to a Maine's
Ragged Island (based on Nova Scotia's Oak Island) to hunt for $2 billion in gold pirate's treasure, buried in the deadly labyrinthine Water Pit. WPL
PRESTON, Fayrene
- SwanSea Place: The Legacy (1990): Loveswept series #383. Caitlin
Deverell had been born in SwanSea, the family home in Maine, and now
she is restoring it to its former splendor to open as a luxury resort.
Nico is a mysterious, handsome stranger, with an ancient secret that draws him to SwanSea.
PROBERT, Randall
- A Warden's Worry (2005): After Korea, an Army veteran retires to a northern Maine village,
takes up a life of poaching and matches wits with the local game warden.
- Mysteries at Matagamon Lake (2003)
- A Forgotten Legacy (1998): Historical novel. Uncle Royal takes the reader on a canoe trip
from Matagamon Lake to Churchill Dam at the headwater of the Allagash River.
While on this trip the reader will discover some of Maine's unique history.
PRONZINI, Bill
- Games (1976): Senator David Jackman escapes from the pressures
of Washington by going on a trip to a lavish estate on
a Maine island with his lover. All is not as he hoped it would
be when he realizes they aren't alone on the island. Before long,
they are running for their lives.