Some authors have territories like James Lee Burke's New Iberian bayous, Karen Kijewski's Sacramento Delta or John D. MacDonald's Floridian haunts. Peter Bowen, a man bearing more than a passing resemblance to the late Richard Farnsworth, stakes out the semi-arid farmlands of Eastern Montana.

In this likeable series, chief protagonist, Gabriel Du Pre, is a jack-of-all-trades: a cattle brand inspector, a fiddler, a lover and occasional deputy sheriff. That's taking a cue from Bowen himself, who has worked as barkeep, carpenter, fishing and hunting guide and cowboy; familiar ground with the likes of Burke, who also claims Montana, (in this case Missoula, as his home away from home).

Anything to keep food on the table and the wolf away from the door while pursuing the craft of writing.

Of mixed racial heritage, or Metis, a combination of French, Cree, Chippewa "and some little English no one wanted to admit," Du Pre has won fiddling contests in the southern most Flathead Lake town of Polson to the point he stays away so that others might win.

Singled out by Smithsonian scholar Paul Chase, Gabriel finds himself in the hot, sticky confines of Washington D.C. during a Indian Folk Music celebration.
Smack dab in the middle of a puzzling murder of a young Cree woman, convincing our hero that he should have never left home.

Back home, Du Pre consents to record some of his music for Chase, who then proposes a canoe trip up the same St. Lawrence riverways as the Voyagers of Du Pre's own past. However reluctant to leave what's familiar, eventually the decision is made to attempt this six week journey into future past, traveling with a man whose sanity is unraveling about as fast as a snake losing its skin.

Meanwhile, someone is doing more than counting coup as the body toll mounts and the one serial suspect seems only too obvious. In cover of darkness, or wearing the familiar appearance of friend, a killer blends among the native peoples and researchers, and Du Pre himself.

Between these events we are treated to little vignettes introducing us to companionable Madelaine, who likes sweet pink wine; Benetsee, a coyote familiar and shaman/Greek chorus all wrapped in one; Bart, who is a drying out millionaire building his own cabin, and his nemesis, a certified curmudgeon, Booger Tom.

I am especially taken with Benetsee, who appears and vanishes as if by magic, and gifts Du Pre with a series of skills, totems and amulets which will serve him well on his arduous journeys...both physical and otherwise. In the ways of shamen, words are often couched in riddles and seeming nonsense, which proves to make perfect sense as the rather meandering mystery unravels.

In the course of his travels Du Pre meets a variety of woodsmen and activists, and Bowen puts his love of carpentry (canoes, cabin raising and finish work) and hunting lore to good use. Each murder uses unique Indian artifacts, yet Benetsee cautions, is committed by a person who hates Indians. Not everything is as it seems, in fact, much isn't, and in this manner the author makes us yearn for the homey environs, clipped speech and stoic lifestyle of Montana's cowboy West.

This rambling slice of frontier wisdom is not the sort of mystery I'd recommend for airport fodder or a fast midnight read. While the pacing isn't slow, it does wander a bit, like a new tree putting out roots. Time slows down in this windblown scrap of Northwestern prairie, a place where blue Northers are likely to freeze an unwitting tourtist, as snows are to permanently wreath the hard scrabble of Wolf Mountains to the north.

For the patient reader, who delights in small, human sidetracks, and the dark forest trail less trampled, Bowen gives much to delight. The very humanity of Du Pre, his family and his friends creates an endearing bit of world you will want to visit again and again, as eventually all clues come together, as an impressionistic painting.

Seen close hand, these words are as little dabs of random paint, No pattern or connection appearing possible within the Brownian chaos of pigment and space. All this changes, however
from the distance of perspective, at story's end, we see the whole emerge, much like those prints of hidden woodland creatures. Or in this case, monsters.

The patois will initially hit you as odd, though it becomes familiar to the ear, and eye, after three or four chapters, sort of Hemingway meets Little Big Man with dashes of Dr. John's garbled Cajun thrown in. Bowen calls it Coyote French. I call it delightful, and am on my way to seek out other novels such as Coyote Wind and Wolf, No Wolf.

Besides the 6 or 7 entries in the Gabriel Du Pre series, there is another, more historically based series about Yellowstone Kelly, (Kelly And The Three-Toed Horse is most recent). Those who would enjoy the rarefied world of Du Pre, would also enjoy works such as Alaskan author John Straley's The Woman Who Married A Bear, blending myth, native culture and modern day life into plaintive mystery.

Recommended: Yes