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

Roger Guay · Kate Clark Flora

Apr 2016 · Sold by Skyhorse

About this ebook

A Maine Literary Awards Finalist, A Good Man with a Dog follows a game warden’s adventures from the woods of Maine to the swamps of New Orleans. Follow along as he and his canine companions investigate murder, search for missing persons, and rescue survivors from natural disasters. This is a memoir that reads like a true crime novel.

Roger 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. When Guay’s 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, he became a game warden.

Guay searches for lost hunters and hikers. He estimates that over the years, he has pulled more than two hundred bodies out of Maine’s north woods! His frequent companion is a little brown Labrador retriever named Reba, who can find discarded weapons, ejected shells, hidden fish, and missing people.

A Good Man with a Dog explores Guay’s life as he and his canine partners are exposed to 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 FEMA’s 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.

Ratings and reviews

This book was so real. I couldn't put it down even though some parts were hard to read. I highly recommend this book. I learned a lot and am an outdoors person. Some of the aspects in this book brought back some of my own memories and experiences.

This is a compelling autobiography of Maine game warden Roger Guay and his 25 year career. It gives you a sense of how game wardens think and feel, along with what they do to protect the wilderness, the fish, the wild game and the people who enter the Maine woods.

SO wonderful & eye opening! I got to go along on all these adventures without having to go into the cold ME forests.

About the author

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.