Peter Bowen
Author of Coyote Wind
About the Author
Disambiguation Notice:
Books 1 - 3 are the Gabriel Du Pre' mysteries. Books 4 - 11 are called the Montana series with Gabriel Du Pre', books 12 - 13 revert to Gabriel Du Pre'
Series
Works by Peter Bowen
Kelly and the Three Toed Horse: A Novel Featuring Yellowstone Kelly, Gentleman and Scout (2001) 25 copies
The Yellowstone Kelly Novels: Yellowstone Kelly, Kelly Blue, Imperial Kelly, and Kelly and the Three-Toed Horse (2013) 8 copies
The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré Volume One: Coyote Wind; Specimen Song; and Wolf, No Wolf (2018) 5 copies
The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré Volume Two: Notches, Thunder Horse, and Long Son (2018) 3 copies
The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré Volume Four: Badlands, The Tumbler, and Stewball (2018) 3 copies
The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré Volume Three: The Stick Game, Cruzatte and Maria, and Ash Child (2018) 2 copies
The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré Volume Four: Badlands, The Tumbler, and Stewball (2018) 1 copy
The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré Volume Three: The Stick Game, Cruzatte and Maria, and Ash Child (2018) 1 copy
Coyote wind 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Bowen, Peter
- Other names
- Coyote Jack (pen name for humor columns and essays on blood sport)
- Birthdate
- 1945
- Gender
- male
- Occupations
- cowboy
hunting and fishing guide
folk singer
poet
essayist
novelist - Organizations
- Authors Guild
- Short biography
- 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 sport 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.
Peter Bowen lives in Montana. He is a cowboy, hunting and fishing guide, folksinger, poet, essayist, and novelist. He is the creator of 'Gabriel Du Pré', master fiddler and occasional unofficial deputy in Montana. - Nationality
- USA
- Places of residence
- Montana, USA
- Disambiguation notice
- Books 1 - 3 are the Gabriel Du Pre' mysteries. Books 4 - 11 are called the Montana series with Gabriel Du Pre', books 12 - 13 revert to Gabriel Du Pre'
- Associated Place (for map)
- Montana, USA
Members
Reviews
Protagonist: Gabriel Du Pré, Métis fiddler par excellence
Setting: present-day Montana along the Missouri River
Series: #8
First Line: Du Pré limped into the Toussaint Saloon.
Strong, willful Gabriel Du Pré is putty in the hands of even stronger, more willful women. That's how he finds himself working as a consultant for a film crew making a movie about Lewis and Clark; his daughter Maria's boyfriend is the producer. However, when the Hollywood starlet hired to portray Sacajawea can't stand show more the (to her) primitive conditions, Maria finds herself with the role. Just as Du Pré starts trying to find ways to prevent the resident Hollywood hunk from bringing out his guitar and joining in Du Pré's sessions, an FBI agent gets in contact with him. It seems the FBI knows what Du Pré is doing, and since he's in the area, would he mind checking into the unexplained murders of nine people who'd last been seen boating on that stretch of the Missouri River? Du Pré reluctantly agrees. In his spare time when he's not consulting, fiddling and looking for murderers, he somehow manages to find something that sets academia--and the US government--on fire. What he does with it will make all contrary souls like me laugh and applaud.
Some folks complain that there's not a whole lot of plot to Bowen's Du Pré novels, or a whole lot of mystery for that matter. The reply that pops first into my mind is rather blunt: who the hell cares? Normally when I read the latest edition of the Du Pré Daily News, I hear his fiddle clearly in my mind. While reading Cruzatte and Maria, I didn't. Instead I was in a pirogue with Du Pré paddling down the Missouri River. Like a handhewn pirogue, this book followed the currents of the river. Good use of the paddle took us to logjams of extraordinary characters, to the quicksand of history, to the shallows of the here and now. Grabbing the sides of the pirogue as we shot through some rapids, I felt the heat of the Montana sun on my shoulders and the vastness of the Montana sky stretch over my head. In many of Bowen's novels there is a clash between the "natives" and the "outsiders". Cruzatte and Maria is no exception. When fiercely independent natives live in an area coveted by outsiders with more money than sense, these clashes are inevitable. Sometimes they can be funny, sometimes they can be violent, but ultimately these clashes are always tragic. It is Bowen's strength that he can write about all of this so vividly, so naturally, in books that don't seem to have a whole lot of plot.
If you can't tell by my reviews, this is one series that I wish I could get all mystery lovers to try just once. Bowen is an unsung treasure who deserves more recognition. show less
Setting: present-day Montana along the Missouri River
Series: #8
First Line: Du Pré limped into the Toussaint Saloon.
Strong, willful Gabriel Du Pré is putty in the hands of even stronger, more willful women. That's how he finds himself working as a consultant for a film crew making a movie about Lewis and Clark; his daughter Maria's boyfriend is the producer. However, when the Hollywood starlet hired to portray Sacajawea can't stand show more the (to her) primitive conditions, Maria finds herself with the role. Just as Du Pré starts trying to find ways to prevent the resident Hollywood hunk from bringing out his guitar and joining in Du Pré's sessions, an FBI agent gets in contact with him. It seems the FBI knows what Du Pré is doing, and since he's in the area, would he mind checking into the unexplained murders of nine people who'd last been seen boating on that stretch of the Missouri River? Du Pré reluctantly agrees. In his spare time when he's not consulting, fiddling and looking for murderers, he somehow manages to find something that sets academia--and the US government--on fire. What he does with it will make all contrary souls like me laugh and applaud.
Some folks complain that there's not a whole lot of plot to Bowen's Du Pré novels, or a whole lot of mystery for that matter. The reply that pops first into my mind is rather blunt: who the hell cares? Normally when I read the latest edition of the Du Pré Daily News, I hear his fiddle clearly in my mind. While reading Cruzatte and Maria, I didn't. Instead I was in a pirogue with Du Pré paddling down the Missouri River. Like a handhewn pirogue, this book followed the currents of the river. Good use of the paddle took us to logjams of extraordinary characters, to the quicksand of history, to the shallows of the here and now. Grabbing the sides of the pirogue as we shot through some rapids, I felt the heat of the Montana sun on my shoulders and the vastness of the Montana sky stretch over my head. In many of Bowen's novels there is a clash between the "natives" and the "outsiders". Cruzatte and Maria is no exception. When fiercely independent natives live in an area coveted by outsiders with more money than sense, these clashes are inevitable. Sometimes they can be funny, sometimes they can be violent, but ultimately these clashes are always tragic. It is Bowen's strength that he can write about all of this so vividly, so naturally, in books that don't seem to have a whole lot of plot.
If you can't tell by my reviews, this is one series that I wish I could get all mystery lovers to try just once. Bowen is an unsung treasure who deserves more recognition. show less
Protagonist: Gabriel Du Pré
Setting: the wilds of eastern Montana
Series: #5
First Line: "I thought Le Doux Springs was on state land," Said Du Pré.
After a serious earthquake shakes up the locals, Du Pré, the part-Métis Indian who frequently serves as deputy to county sheriff Benny Klein, gets involved in a story of greed that links ancient Indian residents of Montana with a Japanese group's plans to turn a spring into a commercial trout farm. There's a murder too: a snowmobiler is shot show more while carrying a valuable fossilized tooth of a T-Rex.
Bowen does more to define setting and character with the rhythms of speech than any other writer I can think of at present. Once I start reading about Du Pré, I'm immediately transported to his world, and since I don't have to experience the cold and snow of eastern Montana, I enjoy my visits there. The archaeology and anthropology were welcome additions to a tale of greed and fascinating characters. The letter of the law is not always abided by in Du Pré's world, and there's not always a tidy "wrapping up". Just like real life, eh?
Hopefully this is a series of books that will never see itself filmed by the PC gurus of Hollywood. Du Pré smokes too much, likes to drive his old police cruiser 100 MPH down Montana highways, and obeys the spirit of the law as he defines it. I find his brand of wisdom and independent spirit a breath of fresh, bracing Montana air. show less
Setting: the wilds of eastern Montana
Series: #5
First Line: "I thought Le Doux Springs was on state land," Said Du Pré.
After a serious earthquake shakes up the locals, Du Pré, the part-Métis Indian who frequently serves as deputy to county sheriff Benny Klein, gets involved in a story of greed that links ancient Indian residents of Montana with a Japanese group's plans to turn a spring into a commercial trout farm. There's a murder too: a snowmobiler is shot show more while carrying a valuable fossilized tooth of a T-Rex.
Bowen does more to define setting and character with the rhythms of speech than any other writer I can think of at present. Once I start reading about Du Pré, I'm immediately transported to his world, and since I don't have to experience the cold and snow of eastern Montana, I enjoy my visits there. The archaeology and anthropology were welcome additions to a tale of greed and fascinating characters. The letter of the law is not always abided by in Du Pré's world, and there's not always a tidy "wrapping up". Just like real life, eh?
Hopefully this is a series of books that will never see itself filmed by the PC gurus of Hollywood. Du Pré smokes too much, likes to drive his old police cruiser 100 MPH down Montana highways, and obeys the spirit of the law as he defines it. I find his brand of wisdom and independent spirit a breath of fresh, bracing Montana air. show less
While this is the thirteenth book in the series, it is the first that I have read - but not the last.
Gabriel De Pré, a Métis Indian, lives in a small town in Montana called Toussaint. He is a very interesting character. He drinks like a fish (straight whiskey), smokes hand rolled cigarettes, plays the fiddle, and is a fierce friend. One of those is his granddaughter, in from Washington D.C. who is a brave and reckless horsewoman. His girlfriend's son has just returned from Iraq less one show more eye and one leg. And on top of everything else, a fundamentalist sect has moved into town and demands that evolution not be taught in school. Oh, and a girl's body was found dumped alongside a road.
Du Pré and this setting make for page turning reading. show less
Gabriel De Pré, a Métis Indian, lives in a small town in Montana called Toussaint. He is a very interesting character. He drinks like a fish (straight whiskey), smokes hand rolled cigarettes, plays the fiddle, and is a fierce friend. One of those is his granddaughter, in from Washington D.C. who is a brave and reckless horsewoman. His girlfriend's son has just returned from Iraq less one show more eye and one leg. And on top of everything else, a fundamentalist sect has moved into town and demands that evolution not be taught in school. Oh, and a girl's body was found dumped alongside a road.
Du Pré and this setting make for page turning reading. show less
Solus by Peter Bowen
I've loved this series since the first book, Coyote Wind, but I do know that it is not for everyone. The main character is a Métis Indian-- a tribe descended from Canadian Indians and French trappers that moved down into Montana. He and his extended family and all their friends there in Toussaint are not politically correct. They speak in a gentle sort of dialect that shows their French roots, and it's amazing how Bowen accomplishes this using little more than well-placed commas and a few show more missing prepositions. These people may not behave the way we more "civilized" people want them to, but they are good people, fiercely independent, and much more willing to stand up for their principles than most of the rest of us. When Du Pré and his friends are given the task of protecting Hoyt Poe and his family, they take it very seriously indeed.
Solus is more social commentary than mystery, although readers will wonder who survives and how as they turn the pages. If you do not like politically incorrect people and if you dislike good people who speak out against the present government, please don't bother to read this book. It will only raise your blood pressure.
Besides the stories and the humor, one of the things I love the most about this book-- and the entire series-- is the cast of characters. From fiddle-playing Gabriel to his fizzy pink wine-loving Madelaine to Bart's wife who is ex-FBI and a steel-spined force of nature called Pidgeon, each character is special. Even the ones you never get to meet like Hoyt's Granny Dulcie, who "found the good in people and made them live up to it."
Reading Bowen's novels reminds me of my childhood when I would sit behind an easy chair or underneath the kitchen table and listen to the old folks talk. These relatives in their seventies, eighties, and nineties knew the previous century, and they certainly knew how to tell a tale. Listening to them, I learned that you took care of your own, you helped other folks when they needed it, you stood on your own two feet, and you never started a fight-- but when one was forced upon you, you finished it. And since I come from a long line of farmers, it sounds normal to me when customers walk into the Toussaint saloon for a meal and a good time and ask, "Who are we eating tonight?"
Solus ("a man alone" in Latin) isn't just about Hoyt Poe, although he's certainly one of the loneliest people on the planet with so many bad guys after him. It's also about people like Gabriel Du Pré and his friends. As I said before, this may not be a book or a series for you, but if it does sound intriguing, please give it a try. For the right reader, Peter Bowen is a very special writer. show less
Solus is more social commentary than mystery, although readers will wonder who survives and how as they turn the pages. If you do not like politically incorrect people and if you dislike good people who speak out against the present government, please don't bother to read this book. It will only raise your blood pressure.
Besides the stories and the humor, one of the things I love the most about this book-- and the entire series-- is the cast of characters. From fiddle-playing Gabriel to his fizzy pink wine-loving Madelaine to Bart's wife who is ex-FBI and a steel-spined force of nature called Pidgeon, each character is special. Even the ones you never get to meet like Hoyt's Granny Dulcie, who "found the good in people and made them live up to it."
Reading Bowen's novels reminds me of my childhood when I would sit behind an easy chair or underneath the kitchen table and listen to the old folks talk. These relatives in their seventies, eighties, and nineties knew the previous century, and they certainly knew how to tell a tale. Listening to them, I learned that you took care of your own, you helped other folks when they needed it, you stood on your own two feet, and you never started a fight-- but when one was forced upon you, you finished it. And since I come from a long line of farmers, it sounds normal to me when customers walk into the Toussaint saloon for a meal and a good time and ask, "Who are we eating tonight?"
Solus ("a man alone" in Latin) isn't just about Hoyt Poe, although he's certainly one of the loneliest people on the planet with so many bad guys after him. It's also about people like Gabriel Du Pré and his friends. As I said before, this may not be a book or a series for you, but if it does sound intriguing, please give it a try. For the right reader, Peter Bowen is a very special writer. show less
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- Rating
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