B.D. Smith Books In Order

Publication Order of Doug Bateman Mystery Books

B.D. Smith
B. D. Smith is the award winning author of a number of non fiction and fiction books. He grew up in Detroit, Michigan and he got his doctorate in prehistoric archaeology from the University of Michigan.

Before he turned to writing fiction, he wrote numerous articles and books on the origins of agriculture and other topics.

Smith is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Smith and his wife live in Bowerbank, Maine during the summer and Santa Fe, New Mexico in the winter. Bowerbank is the same city that he sets his “Doug Bateman Mystery” series in.

“The Ice Maiden” is the first novel in the “Doug Bateman Mystery” series and was released in 2017. His personal life is currently on the rocks, so catching this killer might just be his only chance at redemption.

Doug Bateman is barely keeping things together, at the moment. With his marriage crumbling and still grieving the death of his son, this Maine State Police Detective’s connections to his small town is one of the very few things giving him any kind of comfort. So he is terrified by the discovery of a mutilated corpse in the local lake, particularly when evidence starts pointing to torture by methods used in the Spanish Inquisition. He seems to be selecting his victims at random, then acts out rituals from the Inquisition, before committing their corpses into the sacred waters of Sebec Lake, located close by.

Partnered up with a talented and quick witted new deputy from the Sheriff’s office, Doug throws himself deep into the investigation. However while all of their clues just lead to dead ends, the body count continues rising, and his interest in his colleague becomes more than merely professional, this dedicated cop fears that he has become a part of a butcher’s gruesome game.

This killer, who seems to be hiding in plain sight, is from the local community, and he’s playing a lethal “catch me if you can” game with Bateman and Quinn. The guy seems bound and determined to humiliate the both of them and demonstrate his superior intellect. This leads them to suspect that there’s possibly a deeper motive and purpose behind his string of murders.

Can Doug unmask this madman before somebody else he cares about ends up dying?

“The Ice Maiden” is the compelling first novel in the “Doug Bateman” police procedural series and is intended for readers that like spine tingling thrills, unexpected romance, and authentic settings. It’s a fast paced and chilling noir thriller, and has a carefully crafted plot with a unique premise. Readers found this to be a disturbingly frightening and very descriptive in murders, scenery, and characters. These are some interesting characters, particularly Quinn and Bateman and the secondary characters lend a lot of credibility.

“Black Frog” is the second novel in the “Doug Bateman Mystery” series and was released in 2019. When the opponents against a planned resort development on Moosehead Lake in northern Maine begin turning up dead, Detective Doug Bateman of the Maine State Police gets called in. Concurrently, Investigator Anne Quinn with the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Office looks into a series of odd assaults on women. While these two parallel investigations unfold, Quinn and Bateman each find that their cases are getting more disturbing and more complex.

The sexual assaults might be a part of a bigger pattern which has played out across the country, and the axe murders of environmentalists might not be connected to the Moosehead Lake development project. Emma Lange, a reporter renting out a room up above Greenville’s Black Frog Restaurant on Moosehead Lake makes it tough for Quinn and Bateman while they struggle solving their respective cases as they also sort out their personal relationship.

“Black Frog” won a Maxy Award for “Best Thriller” in 2019.

Get in on the ground floor of this engrossing small town crime thriller. It’s highly recommended for fans of Craig Johnson and C. J. Box.

This is a well written mystery that holds your attention throughout and is a thoroughly enjoyable read, particularly for those that spent their childhoods on the Bowerbank side of Sebec. Anne, Tom, Doug, and Jim help knit together a seriously good yarn. The characters are well developed and believable and Smith does a fantastic job of giving enough description to make the Maine woods and the small towns come to life. The storyline is believable, intricate, and has a few surprises up its sleeve, and has an ending that is action packed.

“Dead to the World” is the third novel in the “Doug Bateman Mystery” series and was released in 2021. Time is running out for Detective Doug Bateman and Investigator Anne Quinn.

An ESPN sponsored powerboat regatta is coming to their peaceful lake in central Maine, however a shadowy environmental group fights back with nighttime attacks on the race participants and planners. Most of these nocturnal attacks carried out by the “Water Rats”, who consider the two days of boat races a desecration of their way of life and their lake, to be pretty minor.

However when Anne and Doug determine that the accidental deaths of two local guys involved in regatta planning were actually homicides, they have to attempt to figure out if they are connected to the increasing hostility between the “Water Rats” and the regatta sponsors.

Seems unlikely that disagreement over a simple boat race would wind up leading to murder, though, and their investigation quickly gets entangled with widows and ex-wives, spurned and jealous lovers, insurance payouts, and secret overseas bank accounts.

Readers felt like they had this one all figured out, and then everything changes on you, leaving them unable to figure out what was going on until the end. These characters feel like old friends by this point in the series. Whether you have been to Maine or not, these novels give you a strong feeling for its setting regardless. This is such a fantastic series that all of the books are enjoyable worth checking out, while you won’t miss anything by skipping any of the books.