A Good Man with a Dog: A Game Warden's 25 Years in the Maine Woods

(Hardback)

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A game wardens journey from the woods of Maine to the swamps of New Orleans.

When Roger Guays father died in a tragic fishing accident, a kind game warden helped him through the loss. Inspired by this experience, as well as his love of the outdoors, Guay became a game warden and certified K9 handler, beginning a successful career that would span twenty-five years and see him establish canine units as a staple of the game warden service.

Guay takes readers into the patient, watchful world of a warden catching poachers and protecting pristine wilderness, and the sometimes CSI-like reconstruction of deer- and moose-poaching scenes. Guay searches for lost hunters and hikers, estimating that over the years, he has pulled more than two hundred bodies out of Maines north woods. His frequent companion is a little brown lab named Reba, who can find discarded weapons, ejected shells, hidden fish, and missing people.

A Good Man with a Dog explores Guays life as he and his canine partners are exposed to increasingly terrible events, from tracking down hostile poachers to searching for victims of violent crimes, including a year-long search for the hidden graves of two babies buried by a Massachusetts cult. He witnessed firsthand FEMAs mismanagement of the post-Katrina cleanup efforts in New Orleans, an experience that left him scarred and disheartened. But he found hope with the support of family and friends, and eventually returned to the woods he knew and loved from the days of his youth.

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Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction * Prize *
Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction * Prize *

Author Bio

Roger Guay served with the Maine Warden Service from 1986 until his retirement in 2010. He is a K9 master trainer, a certified K9 handler, and certified in cadaver and explosives searches. In addition to decades of search and rescue experience, he has extensive experience in missing persons/homicide searches and body recovery. Guay has received numerous commendations from the warden service; the Maine House of Representatives; the Maine State Police; the Miramichi, New Brunswick, police; and the USPCA. Guay lives in Guilford, Maine.

Kate Clark Flora has published fourteen mystery and true crime books. Her titles include Finding Amy, an Edgar Award nominee, Death Dealer, an Agatha and Anthony finalist and 2015 Public Safety Writers Association Award-winner for Best Non-fiction, Grant You Peace, a Joe Burgess police procedural and winner of the 2015 Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction, and the Thea Kozak mysteries. A former Maine assistant attorney general, Kate lives in Harpswell, Maine.