Wolf, No Wolf

Description

A half-Indian, half-French deputy with "a shrewd mind and wry sense of humor" investigates a case of homicide on the range (The New York Times Book Review). Two men have been cutting fences at the ranches of Toussaint, Montana, loosing thousands of dollars' worth of cattle to use as target practice for their .22 rifles. Are they thieves? Pranksters? Local cattle inspector and sometime deputy Gabriel Du Pre guesses they're environmentalists, agitating for the reintroduction of native wolves to Montana's high plains. Du Pre knows the perpetrators are trying to send a message to the ranchers of eastern Montana-he also has a hunch they're already dead. When the activists are indeed found shot to death, Du Pre must figure out who used them for target practice. The FBI descends, but their agents are as clueless in this territory as the hapless victims were. Clearly, one of Toussaint's citizens committed this crime, killing to protect the traditional way of ranching life, a loyalty Du Pre shares. But if anyone's going to arrest his people, it will be the cattle inspector himself . . . Wolf, No Wolf is the third in "a wonderfully eclectic and enjoyable series of interest to western crime readers, especially those favoring Montana authors C. J. Box, Craig Johnson, and Keith McCafferty as well as fans of the Hillermans" (Booklist). Wolf, No Wolf is the 3rd 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.

"Du Pre joins a select group including Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe, and Dave Robicheaux." -Edgar Award finalist William Hjortsberg "Wonderfully sly . . . Bowen plays his language the way Du Pre plays violin: plaintive, humorous, wild, the sounds of the sentences as meaningful as the story." -The Washington Post Book World "Intriguing . . . Original and compelling." -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