Wolf, No Wolf and Notches: The Third and Fourth Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel du Pre [Paperback]

Peter Bowen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 3, 2002 | Series: Montana Mysteries

Peter Bowen’s unique Montana mysteries featuring cattle-brand inspector and occasional sleuth Gabriel Du Pré have always received the critics’ highest praise. Now these two highly acclaimed mysteries in the series, Wolf, No Wolf and Notches, are brought together in one volume.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for the Gabriel Du Pré Mysteries

“Riding with Du Pré is some kind of enchantment.... Peter Bowen writes mysteries that are truly mysterious—informed by Western legend, steeped in Indian superstition.”—The New York Times Book Review on Notches

“Wonderfully sly...Bowen plays his language the way Du Pré plays violin: plaintive, humorous, wild.”—The Washington Post Book World on Wolf, No Wolf

“Wonderful...wise...Hilarious as the satire often is, what makes these stories so rare is the byplay among the natives.”—The Washington Post Book World

“Bowen tells his story in short, perfectly crafted scenes. The dialogue, the relationships, the Montana landscape, and, most of all, the quirky and memorable characters are all matchlessly drawn. If John Nichols wrote mystery fiction, it might read a lot like Peter Bowen.”—The Denver Post

“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 (starred review)

About the Author

Peter Bowen, a Montanan, writes of the West. Cowboy, hunting and fishing guide, folksinger, poet, essayist, and novelist, he’s written the picaresque Yellowstone Kelly historical novels, humor columns and essays on blood sports as Coyote Jack, and the Gabriel Du Pré mysteries, in part because “the Métis are a great people, a wonderful people, and not many Americans know anything about them.”

Product Details

• Paperback: 391 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books (April 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312289634
• ISBN-13: 978-0312289638
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #679,592 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Four-legged and two-legged predators, December 13, 2003

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wolf, No Wolf and Notches: The Third and Fourth Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel du Pre (Paperback)

"Wolf, No Wolf" will never make the Sierra Club's list of recommended reading. It is third in a series of mysteries starring Gabriel Du Pré, the Métis descendant of French Voyageurs and Plains Indians, and it is rabidly anti-environmentalist and pro-rancher.

"Notches" is the fourth in the series, and while the former features four-legged predators, the latter concerns itself with the two-legged variety.

Rabid or not, such is the power of Bowen's writing and the nobility of his characters in "Wolf, No Wolf" that even clean, green bunny-huggers (like me) might end up voting for the ranchers and against the re-introduction of wolves into Big Sky Country at story's end.

All of the regulars at Touissant Bar are part of the action. Du Pré, master fiddler and part-time brand inspector is cast in the role of peacemaker. With help from his friends, the Shaman Benetsee, Bart the rich-guy-turned-sheriff, Du Pré's long-time mistress, Madelaine, and Booger Tom, the ancient, homicidal cowhand, he braves avalanches, gunfire, and false medicine men in order to prevent open warfare between the ranchers and the Earth First! crowd.

There are good ranchers, and there are really evil ranchers who sell dead horses for dogmeat.

There are good FBI agents (not very many) who are either Montanans and/or part Amerindian. The vast majority of agents are feeble, clueless, and from out-of-state. Some of them are so dim-witted as to try and arrest the Shaman Benetsee, who plays a wonderful joke on them with his coyotes.

All of the environmentalists, New Age mystics, and Yuppies in "Wolf, No Wolf" are easily identified by their expensive, crassly-colored, mail-order garments of many pockets. They are even dumber than the FBI agents, and are easily led astray, even unto death, by the book's villains.

And die they do, by avalanche and grizzly, by gunshot and knife, and by freezing to death in Alberta Clippers. The ranchers rescue as many as they can, but winter in Montana is truly hell-frozen-over. Some of Bowen's leanest, most vivid prose is devoted to descriptions of out-landers and cattle that venture out into the jaws of a Blue Northerly.

Better to stay in the Touissant Bar and drink fizzy, pink, screw-top wine, and listen to Du Pré fiddle the sad, old Voyageur songs.

On the other hand, if you're still in the mood for mayhem, follow him into "Notches" where he is asked to assist police on the trail of two serial killers.

There are good reasons why the police might not want Du Pré at the scene of a crime. He spits a lot as he circles the corpse, rolls his own cigarettes and mashes them out beneath his boot heel. A forensic specialist would find traces of him all over the scene. In "Notches," he even hides evidence because he wants to track a killer without interference from the FBI.

On the plus side, nothing at the scene escapes him. If he is called in to examine one body, he may find two others near by that no one else has noticed--which is exactly what occurs in "Notches." Someone has been killing girls and dumping them "like old guts in the brush for the coyotes to eat," according to Du Pré's long-time mistress, Madelaine.

There are two serial killers on the loose in "Notches" which makes for a confusing plot. There are also two FBI agents (see above "Wolf, No Wolf") who add to the scenery, but don't do much more than engage in slanging matches with Du Pré. Madelaine finally presses Du Pré into tracking the killers down when her own daughter runs away from home.

Du Pré is laconic to the point of partial sentences, but the interrupted staccato of his speech is a perfect counterpoint to the harsh Montana landscape and to the sometimes abbreviated lives of its inhabitants. Over 150 corpses form an even grimmer than usual backdrop to Du Pré's musings on the long history of his people and the land.

"Notches" is not so much a murder mystery as it is a complex landscape of hell from the pen of a Montanan Hieronymus Bosch.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Montana, Its Glories, Its People, June 18, 2007

By 

M, Compulsive Reader (Santa Cruz, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wolf, No Wolf and Notches: The Third and Fourth Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel du Pre (Paperback)

Wolf/No Wolf is on the sad juxtoposition of those who have lived on the land and loved it, trying to eke out a living, and those who would like to return the Earth to its natural wonder. Interesting to point out that some environmentalists might be a tiny bit control-oriented, and that those against them may have agendas other than just protecting a way of life. Notches takes up serial killers, who prey on young people who may have been bounced from home or run from an abusive situation and are not just spoiled brats. Du Pre's solution to problems recalls Tony Hillerman's Jim Chee and Ellis Peters's Cadfael in which justice prevails, perhaps ignoring externally-applied laws. Additional is telling of a way of life of the Metis, of whom I never learned in school.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Notches is the book worth reading!, December 15, 2003

By 

Christian Dorr "cdorr_1977" (Davenport, IA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wolf, No Wolf and Notches: The Third and Fourth Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel du Pre (Paperback)

Notches is the book that saved me from giving this whole thing a bad review.

Wolf, No Wolf is about how a bunch of tree huggers (yes I have Montana blood in me!) end up dying. Du Pre and Bart (the sheriff in this book) know its one of the locals, but they aren't sure who. Benetsee is his mysterious self and theres a couple of new characters that play a fairly large role. They don't last long, but they are interesting to see. Bart and Du Pre wrap this case up in usual fashion.

Although some might think that Notches is a bit grim, I did enjoy it. Notches is the story of how Du Pre takes matters into his own hands regarding two serial murder's (skinned little girls keep showing up along Highway 2 and another highway that runs north and south...can't remember the name right now). This book is a quick read and the pace keeps things moving along.