Gabriel Du Pre Mystery
1 primary work • 5 total works
Book 8
In his eighth outing, Metis-Indian fiddler, tracker and amateur sleuth Gabriel Du Pre is called upon to act as historical advisor for a documentary film about the Lewis & Clark expedition. When Du Pre arrives at the shooting site, major trouble is brewing between the local community and the film makers: first, the star quits and then someone sets fire to the props. But when two bodies are fished out of the Missouri River, the stakes rise dramatically. And when Du Pre stumbles upon a secret cache containing Merriweather Clark's journals, tensions rise to a boiling point.
Toussaint, Montana isn't easily rattled, but an earthquake uncovers an ancient burial ground and the well-preserved bones of a primitive people. When an archeologist is found with a bullet in his back and a dinosaur tooth in his pocket, sometime sleuth Gabriel Du Pre steps in with the wisdom and vision of his Metis ancestors to uncover the answers. But while Indians, archeologists, and entrepreneurs battle for valuable land and the precious remains of a dinosaur, a predator more dangerous than the great T. Rex walks the Montana plains, hungry to strike again...
A secretive millennial cult from California purchases a ranch on the outskirts of the Montana badlands---the eerily silent, dry, and windy dead zone---and the Toussaint townsfolk are none too pleased.
The cult members keep to themselves, but the suspicious circumstances under which they've arrived have Gabriel Du Pre questioning their motives and seeking answers. He soon learns from a friend in the FBI that seven of the cult's recently defected members were killed---each shot to death---but no arrests have been made. Then another shooting occurs at the perimeter of the ranch, and Du Pre finds himself blindly searching for a killer, an explanation for the murders, and the identity of the cult's elusive leader.
With "Badlands," his tenth novel in this acclaimed series, Peter Bowen has written his most timely and chilling novel to date: a story of faceless terror told in lyrical prose and steeped in the Metis tradition of storytelling.
The cult members keep to themselves, but the suspicious circumstances under which they've arrived have Gabriel Du Pre questioning their motives and seeking answers. He soon learns from a friend in the FBI that seven of the cult's recently defected members were killed---each shot to death---but no arrests have been made. Then another shooting occurs at the perimeter of the ranch, and Du Pre finds himself blindly searching for a killer, an explanation for the murders, and the identity of the cult's elusive leader.
With "Badlands," his tenth novel in this acclaimed series, Peter Bowen has written his most timely and chilling novel to date: a story of faceless terror told in lyrical prose and steeped in the Metis tradition of storytelling.
First in the crime-fiction series set in the modern-day west, starring a half-French, half-Indian “character of legendary proportions” (Ridley Pearson).
Officially, Gabriel Du Pré is the cattle inspector for Toussaint, Montana, responsible for making sure no one tries to sell livestock branded by another ranch. Unofficially, he is responsible for much more than cows’ backsides. The barren country around Toussaint is too vast for the town’s small police force, and so, when needed, this hard-nosed Métis Indian lends a hand. When the sheriff offers gas money to investigate newly discovered plane wreckage in the desert, Du Pré quickly finds himself embroiled in a mystery stretching back a generation.
For three decades, the crashed plane sat in the sun as the bodies inside rotted away to their bones. Two skeletons are whole, but for one nothing remains but the hands, the skull, and the bullet that ended his life. The crime was hidden long ago, but in the Montana badlands, nothing stays buried forever . . .
In Gabriel Du Pré, “Bowen has taken the antihero of Hemingway and Hammett and brought him up to date . . . a fresh, memorable character” (The New York Times Book Review).
Officially, Gabriel Du Pré is the cattle inspector for Toussaint, Montana, responsible for making sure no one tries to sell livestock branded by another ranch. Unofficially, he is responsible for much more than cows’ backsides. The barren country around Toussaint is too vast for the town’s small police force, and so, when needed, this hard-nosed Métis Indian lends a hand. When the sheriff offers gas money to investigate newly discovered plane wreckage in the desert, Du Pré quickly finds himself embroiled in a mystery stretching back a generation.
For three decades, the crashed plane sat in the sun as the bodies inside rotted away to their bones. Two skeletons are whole, but for one nothing remains but the hands, the skull, and the bullet that ended his life. The crime was hidden long ago, but in the Montana badlands, nothing stays buried forever . . .
In Gabriel Du Pré, “Bowen has taken the antihero of Hemingway and Hammett and brought him up to date . . . a fresh, memorable character” (The New York Times Book Review).
In Toussaint, Montana, old family secrets, forgotten for more than 100 years, come to light after a young woman and her land-owning parents die under suspicious circumstances.When Larry Messmer, the brother and son of the victims, auctions off his parents' ranch, Gabriel Du Pre discovers a string of unexplained deaths buried deep in the family's past.