Maine Books: Adult Fiction Set in Maine, Authors I-P

maine writers index

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!

Juvenile Fiction
Adult Fiction
Click on letter of author's last name to go straight to that section:
A-B / C-D / E-F / G-H / I-J-K / L-M / N-O-P / Q-R-S / T-U-V / W-X-Y-Z

I-J-K

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.

L-M

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]

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.

N-O-P

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.