From Kirkus Reviews
In his sixth outing, Gabriel Du Pr of Toussaint, MontanaMtis Indian; grandfather of many; part-time county inspector; fiddler supreme (Thunder Poise, 1998, etc.)is as puzzled as Sheriff Benny Klein, FBI man Harvey Wallace, and others when vicious Larry Messmer is brutally shot to death. Messmer had recently come back to the ranch inherited from his parents, who were killed in an auto accident years before. Rumor has it that big-time drug dealing and other unsavory things are happening at the ranchan idea supported by the death of Messmer's henchman Bongo Masters, found strangled at the sweat lodge of Du Pr's friend Benetsee. Now the ranch is being run by mean dude Kelleher, and Du Pr, with reason to think he may be next, sends his Madelaine to stay with relatives while he holes up with his daughter, son-in-law, and numerous grandchildren. The history of the Messmers is slowly uncovered, going back generations to Albert's tragic Indian Wife Genevette and the murder, never solved, of Larry's sister. In the end, it's new FBI man Ripper, with a history of his own connected to the Messmers, who sees to it that Kelleher gets his just deserts. Bowens efforts to romanticize Du Pr and the Montana setting are offset by the wandering chaos of his plotting and the casually obscene conversational style of all involved. Tiresome stuff everywhere but in the Toussaint Saloon when the music plays. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
“[Peter Bowen] writes about the rural West better than anyone. . . . He gets it right over and over again.” —Rocky Mountain News “Bowen’s writing is lean and full of mordant observations. His hardy characters . . . come to life, and his wry humor . . . provides relief from the haunting, wind-bitten cattle-ranch landscape.” —Publishers Weekly “Wonderful . . . wise . . . Hilarious.” —The Washington Post Book World
From the Publisher
Praise for Peter Bowen's previous novel, Thunder Horse: "Strange, seductive...haunting....The wonder of these voices is that they are...blunt and crude, soaked in whiskey and raspy from laughter, but still capable of leaving echoes." --Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
"Gloriously unbridled...[Du Pre] resonates with originality and energy." --Chicago Tribune
"Wonderful...wise....Hilarious as the satire often is, what makes these stories so rare is the byplay among the natives." --Washington Post Book World
"[Peter Bowen is] a terrific writer....Thunder Horse makes this reviewer want to race to the bookstore for the rest of the Gabriel Du Pre series....Bowen's Montana setting has the clear cool ring of the authentic." --Rocky Mountain News
"As memorable as the truly surprising plot is the author's writing style, as terse and spare as the story's Montana setting." The Sunday Portland Oregonian
About the Author
Peter Bowen (b. 1945) is an author best known for mystery novels set in the modern American West. When he was ten, Bowen’s family moved to Bozeman, Montana, where a paper route introduced him to the grizzled old cowboys who frequented a bar called The Oaks. Listening to their stories, some of which stretched back to the 1870s, Bowen found inspiration for his later fiction.
Following time at the University of Michigan and the University of Montana, Bowen published his first novel, Yellowstone Kelly, in 1987. After two more novels featuring the real-life Western hero, Bowen published Coyote Wind (1994), which introduced Gabriel Du Pré, a mixed-race lawman living in fictional Toussaint, Montana. Bowen has written fourteen novels in the series, in which Du Pré gets tangled up in everything from cold-blooded murder to the hunt for rare fossils. Bowen continues to live and write in Livingston, Montana.
