The Detective In The Dooryard

Tim Cotton has been a police officer for more than thirty years. The writer in him has always been drawn to the stories of the people he has met along the way. Dealing with the standard issue ne’er-do-wells as a patrol officer, homicide detective, polygraph examiner, and later as the lieutenant in charge of the criminal investigation division certainly provides an interesting backdrop—but more often he writes about the regular folks he encounters, people who need his help, or those who just want to share a joke or even a sad story. The Detective in the Dooryard is composed of stories about the people, places, and things of Maine. There are sad stories, big events, and even the very mundane, all told from the perspective of a seasoned police office and in the wry voice of a lifelong Mainer. Many of the stories will leave you chuckling, some will invariably bring tears to your eyes, but all will leave you with a profound sense of hope and positivity.

For the hundreds of thousands of followers of the Bangor, Maine, Police Department on social media, the "Got Warrants?" feature brings a regular dose of levity. Pulled straight from daily reports, these short interludes provide a welcome spin on the standard police log. Collected here is a fresh batch of all-true police-related hijinks. Poking fun at human nature and turning ne'er-do-wells into sages of silliness, Got Warrants? reminds us all to step back, take a deep breath, and try not to take things so seriously.

NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas must discover who’s preying on those who cater to the rich and famous in this thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling In Death series. When a murder disrupts the Irish vacation she is taking with her husband, Roarke, Eve realizes that no place is safe—not an Irish wood or the streets of the manic city she calls home. But nothing prepares her for what she discovers upon her return to the cop shop in New York... A limo driver is shot through the neck with a crossbow. Then a high-priced escort is found stabbed through the heart with a bayonet. Eve begins to fear that she has come across that most dangerous of criminal, a thrill-killer, but one with a taste for the finer things in life—and death. As time runs out on another innocent victim’s life, Eve’s investigation will take her into the rarified circle that her husband Roarke travels in—and into the perverted heart of madness...

Tim Sample's humor is as much a Down East institution as the famous little restaurant that inspired the title story of his book.

After years of cowboying, Charles A. Siringo had settled down to store-keeping in Caldwell, Kansas, when a blind phrenologist, traveling through, took the measure of his "mule head" and told him that he was "cut out" for detective work. Thereupon, Siringo joined the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in 1886. A Cowboy Detective chronicles his twenty-two years as an undercover operative in wilder parts of the West, where he rode with the lawless, using more stratagems and guises than Sherlock Holmes to bring them to justice and escaping violent death more often than Dick Tracy. He survived the labor riots at Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in 1892 (his testimony helped convict eighteen union leaders), hounded moonshiners in the Appalachians, and chased Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch. Once described as "a small wiry man, cold and steady as a rock" and "born without fear," Charlie Siringo became a favorite of high-ups in the Pinkerton organization. Nevertheless, the Pinkertons, ever sensitive to criticism, went to court to block publication of Siringo's book. Frank Morn, in his introduction to this Bison Books edition, discusses the changes that resulted from two years of litigation. Finally published in 1912 without Pinkerton in the title or the text, A Cowboy Detective has Siringo working for the "Dickensen Detective Agency" and meeting up with the likes of "Tim Corn," whom every western buff will recognize. The deeper truth of Siringo's book remains. As J. Frank Dobie wrote, "His cowboys and gunmen were not of Hollywood and folklore. He was an honest reporter.

Selling his life story to a filmmaker known for the stylized violence portrayed in his work in the aftermath of his sensual wife's murder, Sam develops a cat-and-mouse relationship with the filmmaker and begins experiencing wrenching hallucinations.

Another in John Gould’s Maine series, And One to Grow On: Recollections of a Maine Boyhood, originally published in 1948, is a wonderful collection of anecdotes from the author’s very own boyhood in his hometown—where the mailman was a spiritualist, the harbor master rated a Navy celebration, a circus went bankrupt, and practical jokers were well loved. The maybasketing, the church suppers, the picnics, fishing, are all vividly remembered... There is the story of Sophie whose death proved that rouge did not cover a birthmark... The town drunk who was a successful farmer as well as husband and father... The doctor who was a permanent guest at all school graduations since he had delivered all the children... And there is the tale of Gould’s own dairy chores that included a cow who would not let down and thereby caused a problem with his schooling. On and on these homely, funny stories of a childhood go, conveying in colorful detail just how much fun author John Gould had, growing up, living, and writing in Maine.

Following his best-selling The Detective in the Dooryard, Tim Cotton brings a fresh set of keen observations to his new collection. Drawing upon more than thirty years as Maine police officer--and even longer as a born-and-bred Mainer--Cotton shares stories about life--in Maine and elsewhere--about his experiences, and about the people he's met along the way. With a generous portion of wry Yankee wit, this new collection from Tim Cotton will leave you laughing, crying, or maybe both at once.