Specimen Song - Gabriel Du Pre, Bk 2 Author:Peter Bowen There is no one quite like Gabriel Du Pre. A grandfather so many times over he's lost count, a cattle brand inspector, a fiddler, a lover and a mixed blood French-Indian, he's got good friends and occasional good sense. But not enough to avoid getting caught up in a murder in a foreign country called Washington, DC. — Returning from the c... more »ity, Du Pre begins a canoe expedition up a Canadian river. A run-in with an egomanaical anthropologist on the trip soon leads Du Pre into an unsloved series of bizarre deaths of Native Americans, each murdered with a primitive weapon, each killed by the same person.
Now, back in Montana, the snows have come and a medicine man sees the terrible truth, while on the East Coast, a killer is out of control -- with only one eccentric fiddle-playing Metis Indian left to stop him.« less
Set in Montana, these books about Gabriel duPre are fascinating. Gabriel is a crusty, no-nonsense old fart who fits right into the hardy Montana culture. The stories are fun to read.
I love the unique voice Bowen created for Du Pre. Interesting characters, great atmosphere, interesting bits of history woven into the story. Lots of vague supernatural here. The solution to the murders seems to lie solely with Du Pre; interpreting signs and visions from the shaman Benetsee; even the D.C. detective assigned to the case keeps asking what Benetsee has seen lately. And it has a plot device I'm starting to dislike, where the law can't pin anything on the obvious murderer so someone needs to take justice into their own hands. Eh. But the characters make up for it - Du Pre; especially, his daughter Maria, Madeleine, Bart, and Benetsee. I am (re)reading this series in order; I never read the last two and I'm looking forward to them.