Coyote Wind

Description

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 Pre 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 Metis Indian lends a hand. When the sheriff offers gas money to investigate newly discovered plane wreckage in the desert, Du Pre 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 Pre, "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). Coyote Wind is the 1st book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pre series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Peter Bowen (b. 1945) is best known for his 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, he 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 Pre, a mixed-race lawman living in fictional Toussaint, Montana. He has written fifteen novels in the series, in which Du Pre gets tangled up in everything from cold-blooded murder to the hunt for rare fossils. Bowen continues to live and write in Livingston, Montana.

"Bowen has taken the antihero of Hemingway and Hammett and brought him up to date. . . . As the best literary novels are able to do, Coyote Wind brings many worlds together and hones the language to create a fresh, memorable character and a profound vision." -The New York Times Book Review "Distinguished by realistic dialogue, a fluid inclusion of local history and Du Pre's convincing concern with guilt, repentance and tradition, this is a deeply textured tale." -Publishers Weekly "Gabe's rhythmic, regional voice and his sly wit take the novel to another level." -Booklist