Montana native Gabriel Du Pre has been hired as a consultant by a group of filmmakers shooting a documentary on the Lewis and Clark expedition. Du Pre is a descendent of a Metis fiddler and voyageur named Cruzatte who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their journey. And Du Pre's daughter, Maria, has been cast in the role of Sacajawea. But trouble is afoot. First a fire damages the film props, and then two bodies are fished out of the river. Someone doesn't want them there. Suddenly the site is swarmed with television crews and FBI agents trying to work the mystery. As word gets out and filmmakers, environmentalists, and others threaten to flock to Montana to exploit its resources, tensions rise to the boiling point.

Cruzatte and Maria: A Gabriel Du Pre Mystery (Gabriel Du Pre Mysteries)

Peter Bowen

Business & Money

Blackstone Audiobooks

In the latest installment of Peter Bowen's acclaimed mystery series, Gabriel Du Pré investigates a century-old crime. Lieutenant John Patchen has come to Montana to persuade Chappie Plaquemines, his former gunnery sergeant in Iraq and the son of Gabriel Du Pré's girlfriend, to accept the Navy Cross. First, however, Du Pré and Patchen must find the wounded marine, who was last seen drinking heavily in the Toussaint Saloon. They locate him soon enough, disheveled and stinking of stale booze, but a sobering visit to a medicine man's sweat lodge reveals a much greater mystery: the unsolved case of a band of Métis who were last seen fleeing from General Black Jack Pershing's troops in 1910, before disappearing. Strange voices within the sweat lodge speak of a place called Bitter Creek, where the Métis encountered their fate. To find it Du Pré tracks down the only living survivor of the massacre, a feisty old woman whose memories may not be as trustworthy as they seem. But when Amalie leads Du Pré to Pardoe, an out-of-the-way crossroads north of Helena, he senses that they are about to uncover long-buried secrets. Discouraged by the US military, and their lives threatened by locals whose ancestors may have played a role in the murders, Chappie, Patchen, and Du Pré bravely pursue the truth so that the victims of a terrible injustice might finally rest in peace. 

Bitter Creek (Gabriel Du Pre, 14)

Literature & Fiction

United States

Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio

When Gabriel Du Pré's precocious granddaughter, Pallas, returns from her studies in Washington, D.C., the entire clan in Toussaint, Montana, is happy to see her. Except Du Pré, that is, because the crotchety old fiddlin' cowboy knows that where Pallas goes, trouble is likely to follow. A van full of praying, protesting fundamentalist Christians has arrived in Toussaint at just about the same time. A young soldier follows, just back from Iraq, missing a leg, an eye, and his grip on reality. Du Pré suspects that he's going to have his hands full for the foreseeable future. Graffiti appears on the door of clumsy Father Van Den Heuvel's church, and a cryptic phone call from a missing girl causes concern in town. When a confluence of these strange events and even stranger people threatens problems that even laid-back Du Pré can't ignore, another quirky, compelling, and purely enjoyable mystery unfolds in Peter Bowen's Montana, a land trouble tends to visit often, with unpredictable but fiercely entertaining results.

Nails (Gabriel Du Pre, 13)

The gruesome corpse of a young woman is found beside a long Montana highway called the Hi-Line. Her jaw and teeth are missing, and she is impossible to identify. Full of anger and without a clue, Du Pre begins to hunt the countryside for her murderer. As more dismembered corpses - all young women - are discovered, the small ranching community goes into shock. Madelaine, Du Pre's fierce and wise lover, makes him swear that he will do justice for the victims, whatever it takes. When Madelaine's own daughter goes missing, Du Pre becomes desperate for a clue. He cannot decipher the mysterious messages the Hi-Line Killer places in his murder scenes. Thinking like a hunter, Du Pre must imagine how a serial killer's mind works - and explore the troubling evidence that there might be two of them.

Notches (Gabriel Du Pre, 4)

A serial killer follows Du Pré from Washington, DC, back to Montana A lost and frightened horse plods down the National Mall, startling the crowd. When Gabriel Du Pré spots the confused animal, the connection is immediate, for neither of these creatures belongs in the sweltering heat of a DC summer. Du Pré, a Métis Indian from the wilds of Montana, calms the horse and leads it to the nearest policeman. Du Pré is in Washington to play his people’s music for a Smithsonian festival, but after leading the horse to safety, he encounters a murder instead. The dead woman is Cree Indian, come down from Canada to sing in the festival. Du Pré tries to put her death out of his mind and returns to Montana, but more killings follow: each time with a primitive weapon, each time foretold by a local shaman. As the body count rises and the killer closes on Du Pré, the lawman vows to never again make the mistake of leaving Montana.

Specimen Song (Gabriel Du Pre, 2)

A murder investigation leads Du Pré into the cutthroat world of illegal horse racing  Gabriel Du Pré’s aunt Pauline has burned through more than her share of husbands, so it’s no surprise when she shows up in Toussaint complaining that the latest one, Badger, has run off. Du Pré, the fiddler and sometimes deputy, agrees to go looking for her man and finds him shot, execution-style, in the wilds of the Montana countryside. A chat with his contacts at the FBI reveals that Badger, a small-time drug smuggler, had been working for them since his last arrest. Pauline’s husband was bait, but the big fish got away. The last lead was to a cabal of wealthy gamblers who pass their time racing horses in the barren Montana brush. To infiltrate their tight-knit syndicate, Du Pré goes undercover, lining up his own horse and jockey. He must tread lightly - horses are not the only things these men shoot.

Stewball (Gabriel Du Pre, 12)

Du Pré investigates a gold mining company whose pollution might be poisoning the children of a nearby reservation Something is rotten in the Fort Belknap Reservation. Life has always been tough on this barren stretch just south of the Canadian border, but now the children are dying. While playing his fiddle in a reservation bar, part-time deputy Gabriel Du Pré meets an accordionist who suspects that the children’s health defects and low test scores are connected to the nearby Persephone mine. Meanwhile, Du Pré investigates the disappearance of one of the afflicted children. When the boy turns up dead, the accordionist’s theory gains credence. It wouldn’t be the first time that the rich men of Montana found wealth at the expense of the reservation’s children.

Stick Game, The (Gabriel Du Pre, 7)

Gabriel Du Pr , the old Montana fiddler at the center of Peter Bowen's atmospheric, engrossing series set in the dirty, dusty Montana that's rarely featured in travel brochures, has a knack for finding trouble. Or rather, trouble has a knack for finding him. There's a rumor going around that Du Pr and his old sorceror friend Benetsee have come across a parcel containing the lost journals of Lewis and Clark, and outsiders, drawn by the spirit of the legendary explorers, are beginning to invade Toussaint. Du Pr won't say whether he's got the journals or not, preferring his usual routine of cigarettes, a whiskey ditch or two and a few fiddling gigs up and down Montana's highways to getting involved in this controversy. Benetsee isn't talking, either, but when a journalist goes a little too far in trying to get the story of the lost journals, and the two men's friends and family are put squarely in the face of danger, Du Pr doesn't have much choice but to wade in and set things right. The Gabriel Du Pr mysteries have become required reading for fans of the vanishing West, and Peter Bowen's storytelling talent continues to thrive in The Tumbler, a dazzling entry in what has become a classic series.

Tumbler, The (Gabriel Du Pre, 11)

Du Pre remembers when you could send animal skins to Sears Roebuck and get merchandise in return. Now the wolves are gone from the mountains, and outsiders want them back. The trouble is, a tussle over wildlife is getting people killed. First, two activists die by a sniper's rifle. Then four more lives are snuffed out as a brutal winter storm barrels down on a carnival of Feds, reporters, and protestors. Du Pre knows one of his own people must be behind the bloodletting, and that in this rugged land, you don't quit hunting until you're dead.

Wolf, No Wolf (Gabriel Du Pre, 3)

Creatures of the World: An Illustrated Collection of the World's Wildlife

Olympic Marketing Corp

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Books by Peter Bowen