Cruzatte and Maria

Description

A deputy discovers Meriwether Lewis's journal in this modern-day mystery by an author who "writes about the rural West better than anyone" (Rocky Mountain News). When he's asked to serve as a consultant for a documentary about the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark's expedition up the Missouri River, Gabriel Du Pre's impulse is to flee. Eastern Montana isn't accustomed to getting much attention, and its residents prefer it that way. But the director of the film is dating Du Pre's daughter Maria, so this hard-bitten fiddler's hands are tied. The Metis Indian lawman agrees to act as a guide and help the filmmakers navigate the river, which is as deadly now as it was in 1805. The Missouri has claimed nine lives in the past three years-a suspiciously high death toll the FBI wants Du Pre to investigate. While trolling the riverbanks, Du Pre stumbles upon a national treasure: Meriwether Lewis's lost journals, which the American government will do anything to get back. Meanwhile, when members of the film crew start dying, Du Pre begins to wonder if the locals hate outsiders so much they might be willing to kill to keep them out. "Bowen's exuberant storytelling mines the rich cultural history of the West . . . delightfully extravagant characters" (Publishers Weekly). Cruzatte and Maria is the 8th 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's exuberant storytelling mines the rich cultural history of the West . . . delightfully extravagant characters." -Publishers Weekly "Over eight outings now [Du Pre] continues a relentless march to his own drummer." -Kirkus Reviews "Finely crafted Montana scenery." -Library Journal